Assessment of Compliance With European and French Guidelines for the Management of Dyslipidaemias

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) due to atherosclerosis of the arterial vessel wall and to thrombosis is the foremost cause of premature mortality and of disability-adjusted life years in Europe, and is also increasingly common in developing countries. In the European Union, the economic cost of CVD represents annually €192 billion in direct and indirect healthcare costs. The main clinical entities are coronary artery disease (CAD), ischaemic stroke, and peripheral arterial disease (PAD). The causes of these CVDs are multifactorial. Some of these factors relate to lifestyles, such as tobacco smoking, lack of physical activity, and dietary habits, and are thus modifiable. Other risk factors are also modifiable, such as elevated blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and dyslipidaemias, or non-modifiable, such as age and male gender. LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) is one of the major risk factors for CVD,