One in four patients who present with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels have no documented use of statin therapy, according to a study published April 16 in Epic Research.
Here are four notes on the study:
- Two independent research teams analyzed patient health records from Epic’s Cosmos dataset for the study. The dataset includes more than 296 million patient records from 1,700 hospitals and more than 39,000 clinics from 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as one from Lebanon and one from Saudi Arabia.
- The teams analyzed records of 763,498 patients who presented with a LDL cholesterol level of 190 mg/dL or higher between Jan. 1, 2019, and Feb. 12, 2023.
Patients were grouped by the type of lipid-lowering medication, of which statins are the most commonly prescribed, documented in their EHR before or within two years of the elevated LDL test result. - Of those patients, 25.1% did not have any lipid-lowering medications documented in their health record.
Young adult patients, aged 18-39, were the most likely to have no documented lipid-lowering medications at 46.2%, followed by 22.8% of patients aged 40-74 and 18% of patients aged 75 and older. - Researchers also evaluated the documentation of lipid-lowering medications for patients at an increased risk of cardiovascular events.
Patients with a familial history of hyperlipidemia were the most likely to have no documented lipid-lowering medications at 13.8%, followed by 9.2% of patients with Type 2 diabetes at 9.2%, patients with a history of stroke at 7.1% and patients with a history of myocardial infarction at 3.4%.
Read the full study here.
