Recent publications on Residual Risk

One in eight very high risk patients remain at high risk of cardiovascular events despite statin therapy, according to this report using real-world data. This retrospective observational study analyzed data from 27,330 patients treated with statins (50% male, mean age 68 years). Of these, 770 patients attained a low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) value below current recommended goals. Despite this, these patients remained at high risk of a cardiovascular event, with incidence rates of 1.3±1.0 per patient per year for moderate cardiovascular risk, 4.1±2.6 for high risk, and 12.5±11.0 for very high risk patients. Compared with moderate risk patients, very high risk patients with a controlled LDL-C value had about 5-fold increase in risk of a (recurrent) event (hazard ratio 4.97, 95% confidence interval 1.36-18.2). Despite the limitations of a retrospective design, these findings highlight the high residual cardiovascular risk that persists in statin-treated patients with controlled LDL-C levels in a real-world setting.