Table 2.

Clinical Use of Lipoprotein(a) Measurements

Why would a clinician measure Lp(a)?

Elevated Lp(a) is a common independent atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk factor that is not measured in the majority of affected patients.

The only currently available method to know if someone has elevated Lp(a) is to measure Lp(a) with a simple blood test that is relatively inexpensive.

Awareness of the presence of elevated Lp(a) is important, because high Lp(a) increases atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk and could inform clinical decision-making regarding risk management.

Cascade screening of family members of patients with elevated Lp(a) may identify additional individuals with elevated Lp(a) because of its autosomal codominant inheritance pattern.

How should one measure Lp(a)?

Lp(a) should be measured with:

An isoform-insensitive assay

Assay that is traceable to the internationally accepted calibrator (World Health Organization/International Federation of Clinical Chemistry Reference Material SRM-2B)

Assay that is reported in nanomoles per liter (nmol/l).

If measurements are not uniformly calibrated, one cannot compare measurements generated by different assays.

Lp(a) indicates lipoprotein(a).