Definite evidence has been established, that coronary patients benefit from appropriate therapeutic control of risk profile, as recommended by several Guidelines. However, the impact of these Guidelines on coronary morbidity and mortality is limited by level of its implementation into broad clinical practice and possibility to reach the defined secondary preventive targets with currently available therapeutic resources. We reviewed 6 studies, realized between 1995 and 2000, which was aimed to establish, how many patients with clinical coronary heart disease achieved recommended targets for lipid-lowering treatment. From 10850 cardiac patients examined in these surveys, in average 42.8% were treated with lipid lowering drugs, but only in 26.8% and 24.3% of patients was reached the target level for total and LDL cholesterol, resp. On the other hand use of lipid lowering drugs markedly increased from about 16-32% in 1995, 61-93% in 2000, moreover in the same time period the proportion of patients reaching target levels of total cholesterol increased from about 14-18% to 30-64%.

Keywords: Coronary Disease /prevention & control/; Humans; Hyperlipidemias /blood/; Lipids /blood/; Practice Guidelines as Topic