Thursday, September 10, 2009

How fast should we titrate statin drugs?

From a paper in the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs:

The average time to titration to maximum dose of statin therapy was longer for patients who experienced a cardiac event than for those who did not (3.5 +/- 2.2 vs 2.1 +/- 1.8 years; p = 0.0004). After accounting for other risk factors, the titration period was still significantly related to the presence of a cardiac event (p = 0.0060, odds ratio per month increase in the titration period 1.3, 95% CI 1.08, 1.58).

Conclusions: Despite potential limitations, the results of our study show that an excessive delay in titrating statin therapy to the optimal dose may lead to an increased risk of atherosclerosis-related events in high-risk patients.

In high risk patients maybe we should start high and back down later.

No comments: