OBJECTIVETo determine the percentage of hypercholesterolemic patients who had met the criteria as total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), defined by the Chinese National Recommendations for Prevention and Treatment of Dyslipidemia.

METHODSAdult patients with hypercholesterolemia, who had been receiving the same lipid-lowering therapy for at least 2 months, were enrolled. Lipid levels were determined at the time of enrollment, to assess whether the patients' lipid levels had reached the criteria for treatment. Patients' cardiovascular risk factors and lipid-lowering treatments were also collected.

RESULTSOne hundred and eighty patients with mean age of 65.8 were studied. Of these, 6.7% had no risk factors and no definite disease of atherosclerosis (low-risk group), 65.5% had risk factors but no documented atherosclerosis (high-risk group), and 27.8% had established atherosclerosis diseases or diabetes mellitus. Overall, only 44% of patients achieved both TC and LDL-C target levels. The success rates were higher among low and high-risk groups than that among patients with atherosclerosis or diabetes mellitus. The relationship between four different lipid-lowering drug therapies and successful patient outcome was also investigated. The success rates were 51.8% for simvastatin, 42.9% for pravastatin, 31.6% for fluvastatin, 12.5% for other drugs respectively.

CONCLUSIONMore than half of the hypercholesterolemic patients receiving lipid-lowering therapy had not achieved TC and LDL-C target levels. Data from this study indicated that a significant gap still existed between dyslipidemia prevention principles and clinical practices, suggesting that more aggressive treatment of dyslipidemia is needed.