Statin Utilization in High-risk Hypertensive Nigerians

Individuals with high cardiovascular (CV) risk face major adverse CV events without statin use. However, the study of statin use among these populations in Nigeria remains limited. We examined statin use in high-risk hypertensives.

In this cross-sectional analysis, we analyzed the data from 1040 patients in the Federal Medical Center Abuja Hypertension registry, recruited between 2016 and 2021. Statin use was examined among patients classified as high risk by the World Health Organization/International Society of Hypertension (WHO/ISH), the Predicting the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Events (PREVENT) equations, and the pooled cohort equation (PCE) scores.

The mean age of high-risk patients was 62.7 ± 9.3 years using the WHO/ISH model, with no difference between males and females. The prevalence rate of dyslipidemia of the total cohort was 70.7% (735), while the prevalence of statin use was 61.9% (78), 50.0% (119), and 43.3% (345) using the 10-year CV WHO/ISH, PREVENT, and PCE risk scores, respectively. Furthermore, the proportions of those with high 10-year CV risk were 12.1% (126), 22.9% (238), and 76.6% (797) for the WHO/ISH, PREVENT, and PCE risk scores, respectively. Adjusted multivariable logistic regression showed that increasing age (odds ratio [OR] =1.03 [confidence interval (CI): 1.01-1.05]), diabetes mellitus (OR = 2.45 [CI: 1.69-3.55]), and increased total (OR = 1.90 [CI 1.38-2.60]) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR = 1.83 [CI 1.32-2.52]) (P < 0.05) were the factors associated with statin use.

Our study revealed suboptimal statin utilization and significant CV risk scores disparities in identifying high-risk hypertensive patients. Co-ordinated efforts are crucial for enhancing statin use and developing locally validated CV risk prediction tools.