Over half of patients taking statins for primary prevention do not achieve guideline recommended LDL cholesterol levels two years after starting treatment, new research shows.
A UK prospective cohort study involving over 165, 411 patients also found that 84,609 (51.2%) had a ‘sub-optimal’ (<40% reduction in baseline LDL-C within 24 months) response to statin therapy.
Poor responders to statins also appeared to have a higher cardiovascular risk. The incidence and risk of future cardiovascular events was significantly greater in those with a sub-optimal response to statins, even when accounting for age and baseline LDL cholesterol levels.
For example, during 1,077,299 person-years of follow-up there were 22,798 cardiovascular events; 12,142 in sub-optimal responders and 10,656 in optimal responders.
According to the authors their findings “contribute to the debate on the effectiveness of statin therapy and highlight the need for personalised medicine in lipid management for patients.”