A Clinical Practice Model to Estimate the Cost-Effectiveness of Lipid Lowering Therapy With Statins in Patients at Risk for Coronary Artery Disease

C oronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading causeof death in the Western world. The annual incidence is also considerable. Currently available medical, surgical as well as interventional treatment strategies are increasingly applied in order to stabilise the course of the disease and to improve the patient’s quality of life. Nevertheless, all these treatment modalities are costly. Thus, there has been an in-creased interest over the last few decades in determining the cost-effectiveness of therapeutic interventions in cardiovas-cular diseases. Epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory studies have clearly established a strong relationship between elevated li-pid levels and risk of CAD [1]. Conversely, it has also been demonstrated, that lipid-lowering therapy, especially those of hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reduct-ase inhibitors, (statins), considerably reduce the rate of car