Current questions regarding the use of statins in patients with coronary heart disease

The discovery of statins caused a revolution in the field of lipid intervention. Statins are drugs with a good safety profile. Their clinical benefit has been extensively documented in primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease. There is substantial evidence that the clinical outcome can be improved with aggressive statin treatment both in patients with unstable as well as with stable coronary heart disease. Also, early administration of statins in acute coronary syndromes is accompanied by rapid clinical benefits, mainly through their “pleiotropic” action (anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombotic, improvement of endothelial function, etc) which is probably a lipid-independent effect. Moreover, emerging data indicate that statins can achieve additional benefit when low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol reduction is coupled with C-reactive protein reduction (< 2 mg/L). The prevailing message from the recent statin trials is that intensive LDL cholesterol lowering treatment with statins achieves further clinical benefit beyond that achieved with standard statin therapy. This should encourage the medical community to consider prescribing statins in every coronary patient, aiming at LDL cholesterol levels < 100 mg/dL, preferably in the range of 70-80 mg/dL in stable coronary patients, while in coronary patients at very high risk, the optional target for LDL cholesterol levels should be in the range of 50-70 mg/dL.