Effectiveness of the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol goals in secondary cardiovascular prevention

Background

The effectiveness of statin treatment to reduce coronary events and mortality has been hardly examined considering goals of LDL-C. We aimed to analyse such association in secondary cardiovascular prevention.

Methods

Retrospective cohort analysis of electronic health records from the SIDIAP database, Catalonia-Spain. Recruitment period was from 2006 to 2017 and study period finished at the end of 2018. We included 54,175 people aged ≥35 years in cardiovascular secondary prevention starting statin treatment. We analysed the association of achieved LDL-C goals after statin initiation with coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality.

Results

Mean age was 69 years and 20,146 (37.2%) were women. Coronary heart disease occurred in 5687 (10.5%) participants, and 10,676 (19.7%) persons passed away. Median follow-up lasted 5.7 years (interquartile range, 3.4–8.1). The coronary heart disease HRs (95% CI) for the LDL-C goals of 70–100, <70–55 and <55 mg/dL were .86 (.81–.92), .83 (.76–.9) and .8 (.72–.88), respectively. They were .89 (.83–.96) in the group with 30%–40% reduction and .86 (.8–.93) in the groups with 40%–50% and ≥50% reduction. We observed no association with mortality. We observed no relevant differences by sex or age.

Conclusions

This population-level retrospective analysis of real-world data observed that treatment with statins is effective to achieve certain LDL-C goals and CHD reduction. The lack of significant difference between LDL-C goals needs confirmation in additional studies with real-world data. The LDL-C target should consider the magnitude of the decrease in coronary events.