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Adherence to statin therapy needs improving
3 July 2009
MedWire News: Results from a Canadian study indicate that adherence to statins in the general population is low, but that those with the highest levels of adherence have the greatest reduction in cerebrovascular disease incidence.
Sylvie Perreault (University of Montréal, Québec) and colleagues assessed the impact of adherence to statin treatment on the occurrence of cerebrovascular disease in a clinical setting.
The team used data from two local databases, Med-Echo and the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec, to construct a cohort of 112,092 patients aged 63 years on average who were newly treated with statins between 1999 and 2004. The mean follow-up period was 2.95 years. Overall, 49% of the cohort had hypertension, 21% had diabetes, and 41% were men.
Adherence to statin treatment was evaluated using a medical possession ratio, which is calculated by determining the percentage of days exposed to statins in a given follow-up period. Participants were classified as having low adherence if the medical possession ratio was below 80% and high adherence if it was 80% or above.
Writing in the American Journal of Medicine, the researchers report that overall adherence was low with only 55% of patients having high adherence during follow-up. However, among those classified as having high adherence the incidence of cerebrovascular events was reduced by 26% compared with those with a medical possession ratio of less than 20%.
“Although nonadherence to statins is prevalent, our study indicates that better adherence to these agents is associated with a risk reduction for cerebrovascular disease in a real-world setting,” conclude Perreault and team.
They suggest: “The assessment of medication adherence should be incorporated into routine clinical practice.”
