Costs of dyslipidemia.

Dyslipidemia has been recognized as an important risk-factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. The current, available therapies of dyslipidemia, their effectiveness, costs, cost-effectiveness and healthcare implications are discussed. At the present time, the lipid-lowering therapies are dominated by statins. Despite a variety of assumptions regarding modeling cardiovascular disease risks and costs, statin therapy is generally cost-effective for secondary prevention and for primary prevention in individuals with additional risk-factors. The costs of drug therapy and the absolute risk of developing future cardiovasular events are the dominant factors determining the cost-effectiveness. When developing clinical guidelines, the cost-effectiveness and proportion of the population to be treated must be considered as well as the total population costs of treatment.