RESEARCH ARTICLE Providing clinicians with a v m

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Cardiovascular (CV) disease is the leading cause of death in the world, with coronary artery disease alone resulting in over 7 million deaths annually [1]. HMG-CoA reduc-tase inhibitors, or statins, are among the most effective and widely used treatments for reducing CV morbidity and mortality. Although there are substantial differences between recommendations for when and how to use statins for primary CV prevention, virtually all multi-national clinical guidelines recommend estimating a pa-tient’s overall CV risk in clinical decision making [2,3]. Although past guidelines for primary CV prevention in the U.S., including the ATP III NCEP III guideline, (3) have focused on specific lipid targets (i.e., a “treat to target ” approach), there is increasing evidence for and interest in basing treatment primarily on overall CV risk [4]. Even ATP III guidelines base the individual patient’s recommended low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL