Abstract
In the majority of patients, the risk of cardiovascular events can be reduced by appropriate outpatient care. Nevertheless, in common practice, significant proportion of patients are still left at rather high risk because of insufficient management due to inappropriately cautious approach of some physicians and not ideal cooperation of substantial proportion of patients.
Challenging field of atherosclerosis research is its detection by non-invasive methods especially in asymptomatic persons. While still mainly area of interesting research, it could become one of main contributions in improving patients' cooperation.
Specifically, patients are informed about the presence of atherosclerotic changes presented by imaging methods (sonographic pictures of the plaques in carotid and femoral arteries, or by increased calcium score of coronary arteries detected by computed tomography). Combination of this approach with fixed combination of antihypertensive and hypolipidemic drugs in one tablet could become a very potent tool how to improve patient adherence to therapy and lifestyle changes.