The incremental value of lipids and inflammatory biomarkers in determining residual cardiovascular risk.

With the increasing use of drug therapy and lifestyle modification for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, there remain questions on how to quantify residual risk, particular in patients with diabetes mellitus or obesity. Clinicians have turned to other screening modalities to identify individuals who would benefit from even more intensive therapy or to identify those with difficult-to-assess risk factors. Once a patient has been identified for aggressive risk factor modification, lipid biomarkers such as Apo B, LDL-P, and Lp (a) can potentially have clinical utility, and inflammatory markers such as hs-CRP may be useful for evaluating residual risk.