WASHINGTON – Only one in four U.S. adults with known HIV infection is on statin therapy, even though premature coronary heart disease has become a leading cause of morbidity and mortality for HIV-positive individuals in an era of greatly extended life expectancy due to highly active antiretroviral therapy, Robert S. Rosenson, MD, reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
Not only are statins greatly underutilized in HIV-positive patients, but in a large national observational study, 8% of those who were on a statin were on one that was contraindicated because of concomitant use of antiretroviral therapy or other agents posing a risk for major drug interactions, added Dr. Rosenson, professor of medicine and director of cardiometabolic disorders at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York.
He presented a retrospective cohort study of 23,119 HIV-positive U.S. adults with commercial health insurance in 2014. The data source was the MarketScan database.
During the study year, 5,931 HIV-positive adults (26%) were taking a statin. In a multivariate regression analysis, factors associated with increased likelihood of statin therapy were age 50 years or older, male gender, known coronary heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.
A total of 491 patients were taking a contraindicated statin or a statin at too high a dose to be safe, given the other medications they were on.
The protease inhibitors, nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and some statins are metabolized by the cytochrome P450 isoenzyme CYP3A4. As a consequence, areas under the curve for simvastatin and lovastatin skyrocket when those statins are given with some protease inhibitors, placing patients at increased risk for myopathy, including rhabdomyolysis.
As a consequence, simvastatin and lovastatin are widely considered contraindicated in HIV-positive patients.
Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines recommend pravastatin or low-dose atorvastatin at 10 mg/day as first-line therapy for lipid-lowering and cardiovascular risk reduction in HIV-positive patients, with fluvastatin a reasonable alternative.
Dr. Rosenson noted that in his study, 62% of the HIV-infected patients on a contraindicated statin were taking a protease inhibitor, 29% were on gemfibrozil (Lopid), and the remaining handful were on other agents posing significant risk of drug interactions, including azole antifungals, calcium channel blockers, or cobicistat (Tybost).
The statin study was jointly funded by Amgen, Mount Sinai, and the University of Alabama. Dr. Rosenson reported serving as a consultant to Amgen, Eli Lilly, Regeneron, and Sanofi.