Elderly adults with a low serum cholesterol can be stratified into prognostic groups based on serum albumin and HDL-cholesterol. This can help identify patients who may benefit from closer monitoring or nutritional interventions. The authors are from NIH, Boston and Padova, Italy.
Patient selection:
(1) age >= 70 years
(2) serum total cholesterol <= 160 mg/dL
Endpoints: all cause mortality
Serum Albumin
Serum HDLC
Risk Group
4-5 Year Risk
<= 3.8 g/dL
any
high
41%
> 3.8 g/dL
< 47 mg/dL
intermediate
29%
> 3.8 g/dL
>= 47 mg/dL
low
17%
Limitations:
• The cutoffs for serum albumin and HDL-cholesterol seem high to me. The number of people in each group are listed in Table 2, page 1145.
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