Atherosclerosis imaging and the future of lipid management.

Lowering low-density lipoproteins (LDL) by statin therapy to reduce the risk for major clinical events in patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) represents a therapeutic triumph of modern medicine. With standard doses of statins, the risk for CVD events falls by approximately one third.1 Additional risk reduction occurs by adding other therapeutic modalities to statin therapy—antiplatelet drugs, antihypertensive agents, smoking cessation, and healthy lifestyle changes.2 Most of the benefit from these combined treatments appears to result from the stabilization of vulnerable plaques in patients who have advanced atherosclerotic disease; in other words, they reduce the likelihood of plaque ruptures that cause acute cardiovascular syndromes.