Six poster presentations at last month’s British HIV Association (BHIVA) Conference in Brighton found that only a minority of people with HIV are being offered and starting to take the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. This is despite a November 2023 recommendation by BHIVA that “All people living with HIV aged 40 years or older should be offered a statin for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease”.
Several barriers to obtaining statins were identified. A surprisingly low proportion of HIV doctors had discussed statins with their patients; clinics were still, in the main, using CVD risk scores to prioritise who over 40 should get them; and some people were turning them down due to fear of side effects.
The biggest barrier, however, was that statin prescription is generally done by GPs, and only a minority of people had asked their GPs for them or been offered them by their GP. Statins are the first drugs recommended to be part of routine care for the majority of people with HIV that are expected to be prescribed by GPs, not by HIV clinics.
A pilot study in north London in which a network of GP practices proactively contacted their patients to suggest statins found higher takeup levels. This was one of several studies at BHIVA to find that primary care physicians were starting to get more involved in HIV patient care.
Read the full news story at aidsmap.
Source : aidsmap
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