Introduction and objectives: To determine which cardiovascular risk function is best for classifying high-risk individuals on statins.
Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study of 804 randomly selected patients aged 35-74 years. Variables studied included statin treatment, high cardiovascular risk according to Framingham-REGICOR (10-year risk >or=10%), Framingham-Wilson (10-year risk >or=20%) and SCORE (10-year risk >or=5%) functions, age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors, and total and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.
Results: Overall, 83 patients (10.3%) were taking statins. The prevalence of hypercholesterolemia was 25.6%. When high-risk patients were compared with low- and medium-risk patients, the SCORE function only found a significant difference in HDL-cholesterol level (difference, 5.1 mg/dl; P< .001), whereas the Framingham-REGICOR and Framingham-Wilson functions showed that hypercholesterolemia was more prevalent (at 41% and 37.8%, respectively), the total cholesterol level was higher (difference, 15 mg/dl and 12.5 mg/dl, respectively), and the HDL-cholesterol level was lower (difference, 11.9 mg/ dl and 12 mg/dl, respectively; all P< .001). The percentage of patients on statins classified as high-risk by each function was 16% for Framingham-REGICOR (odds ratio [OR]=1.81; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-3.27), 13.4% for Framingham-Wilson (OR=1.47; 95% CI, 0.87-2.47) and 10.6% for SCORE (OR=1.09; 95% CI, 0.50-2.37). Statin use was also significantly associated with hypertension (OR=1.89; 95% CI, 1.20-2.99) and hypercholesterolemia (OR=11.01; 95% CI, 6.55-18.53), and inversely associated with age in patients <65 years (OR=0.51; 95% CI, 0.32-0.81).
Conclusions: The Framingham-REGICOR function was better at classifying high-risk patients on statins than the Framingham-Wilson or SCORE functions. Statin use was associated with hypercholesterolemia and hypertension and inversely with age in patients <65 years.