Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Australia. It is therefore important that all medical practitioners are familiar with the well documented risk factors for cardiovascular disease, as well as the outcome benefits of pharmacological and other interventions.
The large and ever-increasing body of clinical evidence, the range of patient groups at risk and the plethora of recommended interventions all make it increasingly difficult for busy doctors too adopt an integrated approach to prevention of vascular events.
Prevention of cardiovascular disease: an evidence-based clinical aid was developed by a multidisciplinary group of physicians to address this issue and was first published by the MJA in July 2003.
Patients were classified as being either at high or low risk of cardiovascular events . It is widely considered that high-risk patients are those with clinically evident vascular disease, renal disease, diabetes or other risk factors conferring an annual risk of a future event of 2%–3% or greater. Risk can be calculated using an absolute risk-factor calculator (see above).
The major interventions considered were:
• lifestyle changes;
• cessation of smoking;
• treatment of hypertension and dyslipidaemia
We anticipate further updates and revisions to the aid to maintain its currency in the context of a rapidly expanding cardiovascular evidence base. The management recommendations of this “living” document will continually evolve as new evidence is published.