Correlation Between Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Statin Prescribing Patterns

In 2018, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published an updated guideline introducing risk-enhancing factors and promoting a highly individualized approach to the primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Although the benefit of the primary prevention of ASCVD is well-established within the literature, there are disparities that exist in statin prescribing patterns.

To assess the use of optimal statin therapy for the primary prevention of ASCVD in high-risk populations, including patients with diabetes mellitus or with elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL), according to the average number of ASCVD risk factors.

This single-center, retrospective chart review was conducted between January 2015 and November 2018 at a family medicine clinic. This study included 262 patients who were eligible for statin therapy based on the presence of diabetes, which was defined as an A_1c level of ≥6.5% or an LDL level of ≥190 mg/dL. The primary outcome was the mean number of risk factors between these 2 groups of interest. These 2 groups were further classified by their 10-year ASCVD risk into 2 subgroups-patients with an ASCVD risk of ≥7.5% and patients with an ASCVD risk of <7.5%.

The subgroup with the highest average number of cardiovascular risk factors was patients with diabetes and an ASCVD risk of ≥7.5%. The mean number of risk factors for that group versus the group with an LDL level of ≥190 mg/dL and an ASCVD risk of ≥7.5% was nonsignificant, but the prescribing patterns for the 2 groups were different. Only 53.3% of patients in the diabetes group with an ASCVD risk of ≥7.5% were receiving a high-intensity statin, despite their increased number of risk factors. The difference in statin prescribing patterns between the diabetes group and the elevated LDL group was significant, at 70.6% versus 50%, respectively (P = .002).

Patients with diabetes were more likely to be prescribed a statin than patients with an LDL level of ≥190 mg/dL. However, no significant difference was seen in optimal statin therapies between the 2 groups. Future research is warranted to identify the barriers to optimal statin therapy and to implement methods to improve statin use for the primary prevention of ASCVD in patients who are at significant risk.