Martin’s formula is best to calculate low-density lipoprotein cholesterol

Abstract

Objectives: Due to the cost-effectiveness, most of the laboratories in India estimate low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels with the Friedewald’s formula. There were many shortcomings of the Friedewald’s formula. Recently, Martins have derived a new formula for calculating LDL-C. The present study was undertaken to calculate LDL-C using various formulae (Friedewald’s formula, Anandaraja’s formula, and Martin’s formula) and to compare directly measured LDL-C with calculated LDL-C at various ranges of triglyceride (TG) concentration. Materials and Methods: The present study compared LDL-C measured by Martin’s formula, Friedewald’s formula, and Anandaraja’s formula with directly measured LDL In 280 Outpatient fasting samples between the age group of 18 and 50 years. Depending on the TG values, study samples are divided into four groups. Group 1: <200 mg/dL, Group 2: 200–300 mg/dL, Group 3: 300–400 mg/dL, Group 4: >400 mg/dL. Statistical Analysis: This was performed by the Statistical package for social sciences version 16. Paired t test and pearson correlation were performed to find the significant difference and correlation between direct LDL-C and calculated LDL-C by different formula. Results: Martin’s formula shows highest correlation with r-value of (0.9979) compared to Friedewald’s (0.9857) and Anandaraja’s (0.9683) r-values. The mean difference was least for Martin’s formula (0.31 ± 3.53) compared to other formulae. Among all the groups, the percentage of error was least for Martin’s formula (0.23%). Martin’s LDL-C shows highest concordance (90.90%) compared to Friedewald’s (79.60%) and Anandaraja’s formulae (82.90%). Conclusions: Among all the groups, Martin’s formula shows highest correlation, least percentage of error, highest concordance, and least mean differences. At all TG levels, Martin’s formula is the best formula compared to the Friedewald’s formula and Anandaraja’s formula.