Aortic & peripheral vascular diseaseCohort study
Statins Use in Veterans With Peripheral Artery Disease: Insights From the PEARLS Study
- national registry of Veterans with incident PAD
- pharmacy claims data
- hierarchical multivariable logistic regression
Authors' conclusion
Nearly 70% of patients with PAD were receiving a statin within 1 year of PAD diagnosis. However, use of high-intensity statins and nonstatin lipid-lowering therapy remained suboptimal. Moreover, there was modest variation in use of statins, especially high-intensity statins, across sites, highlighting opportunities for improving guideline-concordant care in patients with PAD.
Study context
- Population
- Veterans with a new diagnosis of PAD, alive at 1 yearpatients with PAD alive at 1 year
- Participants
- 91,970 veterans
- Exposure
- high-intensity statins vs low/moderate-intensity statins vs no statins
- high-intensity statinsn = 34,017
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
patients on a statin
64 231 (69.9%)
patients on a high-intensity statin
34 017 (37.0%)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
- Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol — overall median low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
- 81.6 mg/dL
Nonstatin users not prescribed a statin at any time in the preceding 3 years
- of nonstatin users
- 53.4% (14 834/27 739)
Variables associated with higher statin and high-intensity statin use
- Age, prior history of coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and current or former smoking history, obesity, and revascularization during the initial 6 months were associated with higher statin and high-intensity statin use (among statin users)
Site-level variation in statin use
- high-intensity statin use across sites
- 20% to 54%
- overall median odds ratio
- 1.39 (95% CI, 1.32-1.46)
- modest variation
Original publication
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it