The Effect of Switching to the High-Efficient Rosuvastatin on the Success of Lipid Lowering Therapy in High Risk Patients. The CORVUS (Controlled Targets for High Vascular Risk Patients Using Effective Statins) Study

Istvan Reiber

doi:10.4172/2153-2435.1000267

Abstract

Aim: Achievement of target lipid levels is a one of the most important part of the cardiovascular risk reduction to which an obvious way is to switch from current drug to a stronger statin. Method: In a 3-month, multicenter, prospective, observational, non-interventional open-label study the change of lipid levels and the rate of target level attainment were investigated in 1385 high cardiovascular risk patients, administering, if possible, rosuvastatin in those with lipid levels over the target values. Results: During the 3-month treatment period the level of total cholesterol decreased by 25.2%, LDL-cholesterol by 35.0%, triglyceride by 21.0% and HDL-cholesterol level increased by 5.1%. At the end of the study 96% of the patients were treated with rosuvastatin in monotherapy or in combination. At the third month the rate of achieving LDL-cholesterol target level was 57.7% and that of HDL-cholesterol target level was 66.7% and in case of triglyceride level 48.2%. The majority of patients (1077 persons) belonged to the very high risk category according to theguidelines of 3rd Hungarian Cardiovascular Consensus Conference. Among them the achievement rate of an LDLcholesterol level of 1.8mmol/L was proved to be 19.0%. Conclusion: The study confirmed that more frequent use of a high-efficient statin (rosuvastatin) by specialists has a beneficial effect on lipid parameters and also facilitates a higher rate of achieving target lipid levels, but to be more efficient, mainly in the very high risk category cases, the combination therapy has to be used more often.

Highlights

Despite the gradual improvement experienced over the last decades atherosclerotic heart disease remained the leading cause of death in Europe and North-America
Reduction of high cholesterol level is emphasized by treatment guidelines which support the importance of achieving the prescribed levels, i.e. target values
According to Hungarian studies the most common reason for failure of target level achievement is that the physicians do not modify the therapy when the patient comes with the laboratory results showing inappropriate lipid levels [10,12]

Summary

Introduction

Despite the gradual improvement experienced over the last decades atherosclerotic heart disease remained the leading cause of death in Europe and North-America. Surveys on lipid lowering practice of recent years demonstrate that total and LDL cholesterol levels are achieved more and more frequently [5,6,7,8], despite the considerable and promising improvement a large gap remains between daily practice and the possibilities [9,10,11]. According to Hungarian studies the most common reason for failure of target level achievement is that the physicians do not modify the therapy when the patient comes with the laboratory results showing inappropriate lipid levels [10,12]

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Conclusion