Beuy Joob1, Viroj Wiwanitkit2. 1. Sanitation1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand. 2. Tropical Medicine, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China.
Sir,We read the recent publication on “Evaluation of dyslipidemia, lipid ratios, and atherogenic index as cardiovascular risk factors among semi-urban dwellers in Nigeria” with a great interest.[1] Olamoyegun et al. concluded that “serum lipid ratios and atherogenic index of plasma (AIP) may be used in addition to lipid parameters in clinical practice to assess cardiovascular risks even when lipid profiles are apparently normal.” We agree that AIP can be useful in clinical practice, but there are some concerns on using this parameter. First, the calculation of the AIP is difficult and this will not be user-friendly for general practitioner. This might be the reason why the parameter is not widely used in clinical practice. Second, if the baseline low-density lipoprotein is derived by calculation, the problem of accuracy can be expected in case that the calculation has limitation.[2] As noted by Marniemi et al., “in hypertriglyceridemic subjects, the calculation formulas probably should not be used at all.”[3] Nevertheless, the problem on imprecision of the AIP is also the important concern in laboratory medicine.[3]