[Treatment of combined hyperlipidemia: fibrate and/or statin?]

Combined hyperlipidaemia, associating hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia, is a common metabolic disorder with a prevalence of about 1/500. It has a genetic background, but its phenotype is triggered by various predisposing factors such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and alcohol consumption. Combined hyperlipidaemia is undoubtedly associated with an increased cardiovascular risk and thus deserves specific management. After diet failure, the first drug choice remains controversial. Indeed, fibrates are more active on hypertriglyceridaemia while statins are more active on hypercholesterolaemia (LDL subfraction). Both pharmacological classes have their advantages and disadvantages, and there is no prospective study comparing the cardiovascular protective efficacy of these two treatments in patients with such dyslipidemia. Furthermore, monotherapy is generally incapable of normalizing the lipid profile in the presence of severe combined hyperlipidaemia. Ideally, a statin-fibrate combination would be most appropriate in order to act on the two components of such hyperlipidaemia and to benefit of the complementary and additive action of the two pharmacological classes. Such association is still contra-indicated because of the description of some cases of rhabdomyolysis is high risk patients; however, it now deserves much interest and is currently being tested in large prospective studies, especially in the population with type 2 diabetes.