Achievement of LDL cholesterol targets in patients with coronary artery disease

Introduction: Patients with established atherosclerotic disease require treatment with statins in order to reduce the probability of new events. Objective: To identify the percentage of patients with established atherosclerotic coronary disease that achieve cLDL (LDL - cholesterol) levels less than 70 mg/dL, and to describe its distribution in three treatment groups: statins, other lipid lowering drugs, and without treatment. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive observational study was conducted on patients diagnosed with atherosclerotic disease from 2017 and over 18-years-old from 3 tertiary hospitals. A record was made of the lipid profile that was performed at least three months after the diagnosis. Results: A total of 746 patients with atherosclerotic coronary disease were included. The mean age was 65.3 ± 10.9 years and the majority (75.5%) were males. Of the total number of patients evaluated, 97.8% were prescribed a therapy with at least one statin, 0.7% with other lipid-lowering drugs, and 1.5% had no treatment. Just over half (56%) of the patients had cLDL levels of less than 70 mg/dL. Conclusions: The widespread use of clinical practice guidelines for dyslipidaemias in adults in Colombia, and the incorporation of high-intensity statins, has led to an improvement in the proportion of patients with established atherosclerotic disease achieving cLDL targets. However, a high percentage still does not reach the targets, which suggests a need for an improving of the use of available and recently developed therapies.