Prognostic impact of suboptimal adherence to statin therapy after STEMI: results from the FAST-STEMI registry

Abstract Introduction Patterns and prognostic impact of suboptimal adherence to statin therapy, after STEMI, remains understudied Purpose To identify predictors and to estimate the prognostic impact of low statin adherence after STEMI Method We evaluated real-world purchase of statins and typical cardiovascular drugs, after STEMI, in a large regional database that enrolled patients from 2012 to 2017; adherence was defined as the ratio of bought tablets divided by the number of expected tablets in the follow-up period. Cox regression was used for multivariate analysis; Kaplan Meier and Cox proportional hazard models were performed to evaluate cumulative event rates of all-cause mortality at follow-up Results A total of 4062 patients were enrolled, of which 12.6% died after a median of 4.7 years of follow up (IQR 3.7–5.7). Statin adherence lower than 80%, identified as the best cutoff at Youden's analysis, was identified in 42% of the registry population; statin adherent patients were more likely younger, with known dyslipidemia at enrollment, discharged with ACE inhibitors and a potent P2Y12 inhibitor (ticagrelor or prasugrel), and with a statin diverse from atorvastatin. After multivariate adjustment for in-study outcome predictors, low statin adherence was independently associated with all cause mortality (HR 0.57; 95% CI 0.46–0.70; p<0.001), along with older age, not known dyslipidemia at enrollment and clopidogrel at discharge after STEMI Conclusions In the contemporary real-world setting, statin adherence following STEMI remains poor, especially in high risk patients, and is still a crucial independent predictor of all-cause mortality. Effective strategies to improve statint adherence remain an unmet clinical need. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.