Application of the New Cholesterol Guidelines

To the Editor: Pencina et al. (April 10 issue) 1 report that 12.8 million more adults in the United States — mostly older adults who do not have cardiovascular disease — would be eligible for statin therapy under the new guidelines of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (ACC–AHA) for the management of cholesterol. The 2013 Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guidelines on the management of lipid levels in chronic kidney disease are more inclusive. 2 Unlike the ACC–AHA guidelines, which include a lower limit for the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol level (70 mg per deciliter [1.8 . . .