Cardiovascular risk perception and evidence–practice gaps in Australian general practice

In reply: We thank Radford for his insightful comments, seasoned with spice from the frontline of primary care. Although guidelines are an accepted part of clinical practice, they are just recommendations and are not without their limitations. Treatments need to be individually tailored according to many factors. Our aim, therefore, was to provide a current snapshot of adherence to cardiovascular guidelines in primary care in Australia.1 It would be naive of us to think that there would be complete adherence to the guidelines in the “real world”. We wished to obtain an overall benchmark figure and, more importantly, identify treatment gaps or disparities in care across important patient subgroups defined by risk of cardiovascular event.