The efficacy of statin therapy may be lost or vary with reduction in compliance and intensity of statin therapy.
Objective
To study and correlate the quantitative effect of compliance on lipid profile and 3-hydroxyl-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGCoA-R) levels in dyslipidemic patients.
Methods
Compliance to different intensity of statin therapy assessed by pill count was correlated with serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG), apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1), apolipoprotein B (ApoB) and HMGCoA-R.
Results
Out of 200 patients, 160 received moderate intensity statin therapy whereas 40 were on high intensity statin therapy. The overall mean compliance of patients was 56.7%. The compliance of patients on moderate intensity statin therapy was higher (56.8%) than those on high intensity (56.4%) (p = 0.92). There was significant inverse correlation (p < 0.05) between compliance and TC, TG, LDL-C and HMGCoA-R levels and positive correlation (p < 0.05) with HDL-C levels. The mean serum HMGCoA-R levels did not fall below 9–10 ng/mL when compliance to either moderate or high intensity statin therapy was increased above 60%.
Conclusions
It is appropriate to improve the compliance to existing statin therapy than switching over to higher intensity statin therapy. Estimation of HMGCoA-R levels may be explored as a surrogate marker to monitor and assess the compliance of patients to statin therapy.
