[The lipid profile in 1987. Where to start and where to end?]

In 1987, the lipid work-up forms now an integral part of a rational policy of prevention of often dramatic and unfortunately often fatal clinical accidents of atherosclerosis, especially coronary atherosclerosis coronary atherosclerosis where an extremely high mortality, around 60,000 par year, requires that all prevention efforts be mobilized, as everything seems to indicate that it will be quickly rewarding and will substantially reduce this main scourge of mortality and morbidity in this country. It is desirable that every french person, in a relatively near future, with the new simplified techniques of cholesterol and triglycerides controls, be aware of his/her cholesterol level when prevention is effective: i.e. at a relatively early age, if possible around the age of 30, before the warnings of common atherosclerosis in the fifth or sixth decade. If the lipid work-up is normal, limited in a known patient without any personal or familial risk factor, to a simple dosage of fasting blood cholesterol and triglycerides, and costing merely 45 French Francs, it is not necessary to repeat that test in these patients, except every 5 years approximately. The cost to the national community is extremely low. On the contrary, in all cases where the first dosage indicate abnormalities, or are found in a family with major cardio-vascular risk in several of its members, or in case of familial hyperlipidemia, this work-up must be improved, associated with the dosage of HDL cholesterol by the precipitation technique enabling to recover the computed dosage of LWDL cholesterol, and the dosage of apoprotein B, currently rather well standardized and if possible, in the near future, the dosage of apoprotein Al.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)