Prevention of coronary heart disease and the National Cholesterol Education Program.

The incubation period for the progression of atherosclerosis to clinical disease is long, which provides an opportunity for risk factor modification and prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD). The National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) utilized the Framingham risk score (FRS) to classify individuals by level of risk to receive drug therapy and/or dietary counseling to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and raise highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). The rationale for choosing specific cutpoints for treatment was based on 3 key variables: (1) the efficacy of drug therapy to reduce the CHD incidence, (2) the safety of drug therapy, and (3) the cost of therapy.