A new approach for evaluating risk factors in coronary artery disease: a study of lipid concentrations and severity of disease in 1847 males.

Using recently developed statistical techniques, we estimated joint probability density functions for plasma cholesterol and plasma triglyceride concentrations in 12 subgroups of 1847 males with angiographically demonstrated coronary artery disease. The subjects were grouped by patterns of age, history of hypertension, history of smoking and severity of disease. From the estimated joint probability density functions, we determined the way in which the risk of severe vs moderate coronary artery disease varied with the joint variation of plasma lipids for given combinations of the other risk factors. The patterns of risk that we found are evidence of the complicated way in which the relationship between plasma lipids and the severity of coronary artery disease is affected by other risk factors.