Australia’s guidelines for managing absolute cardiovascular disease risk should be a ‘living’ document that can be updated as new evidence emerges, public health specialists say.

As the most recent overhaul of the guidelines was in 2012, it’s missing important recently published research, says physician and epidemiologist Professor Emily Banks, from the Australian National University.

This includes, for example, the use of blood pressure targets in people at high risk of CVD.

“The process of updating full guidelines can take several years to complete, such that some aspects of the guidelines are likely to be out of date by the time they are published,” Professor Banks and colleagues write in Heart, Lung and Circulation.