Abstract
To determine the status of lipid management in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) in Japan, we assessed CAD patients who had been receiving lipid-lowering therapy for six months in a cross-sectional survey conducted between June 2001 and December 2002. We defined the achievement rate as the percentage of patients who achieved the target LDL-C level (< 100 mg/dl) specified by the Japan Atherosclerosis Society (JAS). A total of 1,836 Japanese CAD patients were enrolled. In total, 549 (29.9%) achieved the target level. The achievement rate among those receiving statin therapy was 41.3%, which was significantly higher than that (23.4%) among the patients not receiving statin (P < 0.0001). The rate differed with the type of statin; being 54.7% for atorvastatin, 24.8% for pravastatin, 37.1% for simvastatin, and 27.8% for fluvastatin. A multiple regression analysis revealed that atorvastatin use (P < 0.001), and simvastatin use (P = 0.004) significantly contributed to the achievement of the target LDL-C level. In conclusion, large proportions of CAD patients are not achieving the JAS target and the success rates are not similar among different statin therapies, suggesting that cardiologists should consider a more aggressive lipid-lowering therapy with the appropriate choice of statins in Japanese CAD patients.
