Wednesday, July 21, 2010

In hospital initiation of lipid lowering therapy in patients with TIA and stroke

We already knew that initiation of statins was associated with better outcomes for ACS. We also knew that continuation of statins in patients already taking them was associated with better stroke outcomes. This study looked at initiation of lipid lowering drugs (presumably usually statins) in patients hospitalized with stroke or TIA:

On multivariate Cox regression analysis, after adjustment for the potential confounders, LLT use at discharge was associated with a lower rate of the composite end point at 6 months (hazard ratio 0.78, 95% confidence interval 0.61 to 0.98, p = 0.013). In conclusion, our data have indicated that LLT has been underused in patients with stroke. In-hospital initiation of LLT was associated with a better clinical outcome in patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack.

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