Lipid profile and persistent lipid abnormalities in diabetic patients a retrospective study

Introduction: The purposes of this study are the characterization the lipid profile and the suitability of the statins treatment according to the cardiovascular profile. Also, in statin-treated patients, we aim to determine the prevalence of persistent lipid abnormalities. Material and methods: Observational and retrospective study of outpatient diabetic patients of a hospital consultation, between Jun/2014 and Jun/2015. Results: Of the 199 diabetic patients included, 58.6% were treated with statins and only 13.9% were treated with statin dose adequate for its cardiovascular profile. The patients without overt cardiovascular disease had higher total cholesterol (178.0 vs 157.5 mg/di; p= 0.003), HDL-C (51.0 vs 43.0 mg/di; p= 0.005), LDL-C (97.0 vs 79.0 mg/di; p= 0.004) and non-HDL-C (127.0 vs 112.5 mg/di; p=0.04) and higher prevalence of patients who achieved HDL-C goals (64.3 vs 33.3%; p < 0.0001). Almost half of statin-treated patients (46.8%) failed to achieve the LDL-C goals, 35.8% and 51.6% failed the triglycerides and HDL-C goals, respectively. Only 11.7% achieved all three goals. In statin-treated patients, we found a statistically significant difference between patients with and without cardiovascular disease on the prevalence of patients reaching the target HDL-C (68.1 vs 35.4%; p= 0.001). There were no differences in the prevalence of patients who achieved LDL-C and triglyceride goals. Discussion/conclusion: There is a suboptimal utilization of statins and a substantial percentage of diabetic patients that do not achieve the therapeutic goals. We emphasize the need for an effort to optimize the lipid profile of diabetics in order to contribute to reducing the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in this population. (C) 2016 Sociedade Portuguesa de Endocrinologia, Diabetes e Metabolismo. Published by Elsevier Espaila, S.L.U.