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In the second part of an interview with HCPLive, Peter Toth, MD, director of preventive cardiology, CGH Medical Center, discussed the use of new agents for lipid management and whether they will become primary or secondary agents in treatment.
“I think for the most part pretty much all of them can be used in combination with statins, or ezetimibe, or probably even the PCSK9 monoclonal drugs,” Toth said. “But let’s say a patient is statin intolerant, then this gives you a whole new mechanistic approach by which to try to impact risk and reduce the load of atherogenic lipoproteins in serum.”
He noted that clinicians can now take advantage of alternative pathways to reduce LDL-C and serum pathways that were not possible before.
Additionally, Toth spoke about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on cholesterol levels in patients who are currently being treated for the various comorbidities.
He noted that people stop their medications and do not go to the hospital during a cardiovascular event for fear of becoming infected with COVID-19.
“We have lost an average of a year and a half of life expectancy in the United States due to the COVID pandemic,” Toth said. “I am absolutely certain that not only has the trend of increasing cardiovascular mortality continued, but I am sure it has increased. We have a lot to learn, we will certainly have to think of new ways to protect our health. patients against future pandemics. “
Finally, Toth observed the complications of statin adherence, as more patients believe they are statin intolerant.
“Over the past 10 years, there has been a continued increase in cardiovascular mortality in both men and women,” Toth said. “Despite the fact that over the past 30 years this was a clear downward trend. So we have these wonder drugs, they are underused, and often for false pretenses they are stopped.”
Watch the first part of the interview with Peter Toth, MD here.
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