Greyhounds have a higher serum creatinine concentration than do non-Greyhound dogs. This idiosyncrasy should be taken into account when evaluating healthy Greyhounds and those with suspected renal disease.

The Bowling Green Study of the Primary and Secondary Prevention of Atherosclerotic Disease has accumulated an age-sex register of 668 consecutive patients who developed some form of atherosclerotic disease between 4 November 1974 and 1 January 1997. Observational data relating to levels of lipids and glucose, blood pressure, body-mass index, and cigarette-smoking status are included in the age-sex register. Analysis of this database clearly shows that cigarette smoking is the main cause of atherosclerotic disease, including events in each of the vascular trees, as well as multiple-system disease and death, at ages much earlier than the ages at which similar atherosclerotic events occur in ex-smokers. Ex-smokers, in turn, suffer corresponding events at earlier ages than do neversmokers. Cigarette smoking produces atherosclerotic events at roughly the same age irrespective of status of other risk factors and is therefore the single most important risk factor for atherosclerosis.

Background The only reason for treating dyslipidaemia is the prevention and! or stabilization of atherosclerosis. Angiographic stabilization! reversal of coronary atherosclerosis predicts a decrease in future atherosclerotic disease manifestations.Methods This paper reports on an analysis of eight angiographic trials that use therapy of dyslipidaemia in order to stabilize! reverse coronary atherosclerosis. The analysis involved plotting trial lipid and blood pressure end-points on a risk factor graph which contained a threshold line in order to determine whether bringing trial end-points below that threshold line predicted angiographic stabilization! regression of coronary atherosclerosis.Results In fact, the angiograms for those patients whose lipid-blood pressure plots were brought below the threshold line exhibited stabilization! regression of coronary atherosclerosis in 75% of cases. It is suggested that the goal of dyslipidaemic therapy should be to bring patient lipid-blood pressure plots below the threshold line so as to stabilize! reverse extant coronary atherosclerosis, apparent or inapparent, in the majority of dyslipidaemic patients. J Cardiovasc Risk 7:415-423

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Background: The Lipid Regulatory Hypothesis (LRH) states that the best way to regress atherosclerotic plaque is to simultaneously decrease the cholesterol being transported into the arterial wall by low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and increase the cholesterol being removed from the arterial wall, via reverse cholesterol transport, by high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The cholesterol retention fraction (CRF) is defined as (LDL cholesterol minus HDL cholesterol) divided by LDL cholesterol. The Program on the Surgical Control of the Hyperlipidemias (POSCH), which employed partial ileal bypass as the intervention modality, was selected for verification of the LRH and the validity of the CRF. Methods: POSCH coronary arteriographic plaque progression or non-progression (stabilisation/regression) from baseline to 3 years was stratified on a five-by-five factorial grid with 25 cohort cells combining LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol changes from baseline to 1 year following intervention. Predictive capacity for arteriography changes of LDL cholesterol and CRF were compared. Statistics used were logistic regressions. Results: There were 731 paired arteriographic assessments of individual POSCH patients: 163 progression (22%) and 568 non-progression (stabilisation/regression) (78%). A reciprocal LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol relationship represented as a five-by-five factorial showed non-progression above and progression below the dividing diagonal. 100% (163/163) of patients with plaque progression had a rise in their CRF; and 100% (568/568) of patients with plaque non-progression had a fall in their CRF. LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and CRF were all highly significant predictors of plaque progression and non-progression (p<0.0001). Conclusion: In POSCH, the partial ileal bypass-induced changes in the LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and the CRF are highly correlated with the sequential coronary arteriography changes of plaque progression and non-progression. This study affirms that individual patient prognosis can be predicted by the magnitude of response to lipid intervention.