European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the primary cause of mortality in developed and developing societies. Identifying patients at high CVD risk is important but challenging. Measurement of classical risk factors is crucial for this assessment. Also, next to traditional factors such as lipids or lipoprotein levels, apolipoproteins or Lp(a) plasma levels may be important for such purposes. Moreover, the use of emerging biomarkers such as C-reactive protein is likely to gain importance in upcoming years in an attempt to better identify subgroups of patients that may be at increased cardiovascular risk. Our review will focus on novel tools that are, or will become available to identify patients at high CVD risk; and to discuss the potential usefulness of statins in these patients, with a particular focus on potent statin therapy.