Prevalence and predictors of lipid abnormalities in patients treated with statins in the UK general practice

Abstract Objective To identify the prevalence and predictors of lipid abnormalities in statin-treated patients in the UK. Methods A retrospective cohort study was performed using the UK General Practice Research Database. Patients ≥35 years of age were included if they received first-ever statin between January 2000 and December 2004, received statins for at least 6 weeks, had >2 years of pre- and 1 year of post-statin initiation database history, received no concomitant lipid lowering drugs and had at least one complete lipid profile conducted within 1 year before and after initiating statins. Predictors of each lipid abnormality were determined using random effects logistic regression. Results Within 1 year of statin initiation, 34.7%, 27.4%, 68.2% and 57.6% of patients did not reach optimal levels of TC, LDL-C, HDL-C and TG, respectively. Failure to attain TC goal was explained by smoking (odds ratio = 1.13, 95% confidence interval [1.02–1.23]) and baseline TC >6.2 mmol/L (5.01, [4.58–5.48]). Failure to attain LDL-C goal was associated with smoking (1.28, [1.14–1.43]), LDL-C ≥4.1 to