Boricha Hetal, Blankenship James C, Schade David S
Cardiology Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, MSC 10 5550, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
Endocrinology Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
Cardiovasc Drugs Ther. 2024 Dec;38(6):1083-1087. doi: 10.1007/s10557-024-07600-1. Epub 2024 Jul 8.
Statin drugs are effective at reducing cardiovascular events, but adherence to statin therapy remains a problem for patients and their physicians. We review a paper estimating the economic costs of poor adherence to statin drugs.
The authors examined two large databases (Medicare and Market Scan databases) including 230,000 patients with hospitalization for myocardial infarction between 2018 and 2019 to determine how many patients were not adhering to guideline-recommended anti-hyperlipidemic medications. They have also calculated the potential consequences of patients who are not adhering to the recommended therapy.
The authors estimate that if all patients were receiving guideline-directed medical therapy, then a 22% relative risk reduction would occur in the 3-year period following discharge from the initial cardiovascular event. These findings are consistent with prior reports. This editorial discusses rationale and strategies clinicians can use to improve patients' compliance with recommendations for lipid-lowering therapy.
The authors conclude that better compliance with guideline-directed lipid therapy after a cardiovascular event would lead to a large reduction in second events. Increased efforts by clinicians to improve adherence to statin therapy are warranted.
他汀类药物在降低心血管事件方面有效，但患者及其医生对他汀类药物治疗的依从性仍然是一个问题。我们回顾一篇评估他汀类药物依从性差的经济成本的论文。
作者检查了两个大型数据库（医疗保险和市场扫描数据库），其中包括2018年至2019年间因心肌梗死住院的230,000名患者，以确定有多少患者未遵循指南推荐的抗高脂血症药物治疗。他们还计算了未遵循推荐治疗的患者的潜在后果。
作者估计，如果所有患者都接受指南指导的药物治疗，那么在首次心血管事件出院后的3年内，相对风险将降低22%。这些发现与先前的报告一致。这篇社论讨论了临床医生可用于提高患者对降脂治疗建议依从性的基本原理和策略。
作者得出结论，心血管事件后更好地遵循指南指导的脂质治疗将导致二次事件大幅减少。临床医生有必要加大努力提高他汀类药物治疗的依从性。
