Table 4.

Effect of high density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration and systolic blood pressure on 10 year risk of coronary heart disease. Unless stated otherwise, values are the computer program’s predictions of 10 year risk (%) of coronary heart disease in a 55 year old male smoker with serum total cholesterol concentration of 7.4 mmol/l.

	Systolic blood pressure (mm Hg)
	126	136	146	156	166	176	186
High density lipoprotein concentration (mmol/l):
0.8	30*	32*	35*	37*	39	40	42
0.9	27	30*	32*	34*	36	37	39
1.0	25	27	29	31*	33	35	37
1.1	23	25	27	29	31	33	34
1.2	21	23	25	27	29†	31	32
1.3	20	22	23	25	27†	29†	30
1.4	18	20	22	24	25†	27†	29†
Statin treatment based on Sheffield tables‡	No	No	No§	No§	Yes	Yes	Yes

^*Patients who might be undertreated if standard Sheffield tables are used as basis for prescribing statins. 

^†Patients who might be overtreated if standard Sheffield tables are used as basis for prescribing statins. 

^‡Sheffield tables advocate statin treatment at a threshold risk of 30% over 10 years (roughly equivalent to 3% a year). The tables assume that high density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration is 1.15 mmol/l in men and that systolic blood pressure is either 139 mm Hg if there is no hypertension, or will be controlled to 160 mm Hg if hypertension is present. These simplifications lead to overestimation of risk in some patients and underestimation in others. 

^§For this analysis, we have taken “hypertension” to mean a systolic blood pressure of >160 mm Hg. If a systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg was taken as the cut off, the “treatment decision” in these two columns might be altered to “Yes.”