Real-world data on treatment patterns in at least high cardiovascular risk patients on dual and triple lipid lowering therapy in a Hellenic nationwide e-prescription database

Background

Despite recent guidelines appropriate lipid-lowering treatment (LLT) remains suboptimal in everyday clinical practice.

Aims

We aimed to describe clinical practice of use of LLT for at least high CV risk populations in a Hellenic real-world setting and assess how this relates to the European Society of Cardiology treatment guidelines.

Methods

We analyzed data from a retrospective cohort study of the National Registry of patients with dyslipidemia between 1/7/2017 and 30/6/2019 who were at least of high CV risk and filled a dual or triple lipid-lowering treatment (dLLT, tLLT) prescription. The primary outcomes of interest of this analysis were to report on the patterns of LLT use in at least high CV risk patients.

Results

A total of 994,255 (45.4% of Greeks on LLT) were of at least high CV risk and 120,490 (5.5%) were on dLLT or tLLT. The percentage of patients with reported statin intolerance ranged from 2 to 10%. While persistence was reported to be satisfactory (>85% for both dLLT or tLLT), adherence was low (ranging between 14 and 34% for dLLT). In 6-month intervals, the percentage of patients achieving a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) target below 100 md/dL ranged from 20% to 23% for dLLT and 34%–37% for tLLT.

Conclusions

The prevalence of at least high CV risk patients among patients receiving LLT in Greece is substantial. Despite the high persistence and probably due to the low adherence to treatment, LDL-C remains above targets in more than two thirds of patients.