From: Communicating statin evidence to support shared decision-making
Clinical decision-making should be guided by patient values as well as best available evidence |
Virtually all medical interventions have potential harms as well as potential benefits |
Benefits and harms vary in terms of frequency, magnitude, impact, and importance to patients |
Recently released guidelines endorse the use of statins to prevent cardiovascular (CV) events when the estimated 10Â year CV event risk is as low as 7.5Â %, a major change from previous guidelines, which endorsed preventive treatment when 10-year risk was 20Â % or higher |
Best evidence suggests that taking a statin pill every day for 10Â years would reduce a 7.5Â % risk by about 1.9 to 5.6Â %. Similarly, a 20Â % 10-year event risk could be reduced to 15Â %. |
Potential harms of statins are very low, but include myopathy, diabetes, and hepatotoxicity |
Whether benefit harm trade-offs make a statin worthwhile is an individual patient decision |
Practicing clinicians and health care delivery systems should strive to communicate best available evidence so that patients are able to make informed decisions about their health |