Ongoing Therapy and Monitoring
With Lipid Panel
In adults with diabetes, a screening lipid
profile (total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol,
HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides) is reasonable
at the time of first diagnosis, at
the initial medical evaluation, and/or at
age 40 and periodically (e.g., every 1–2
years) thereafter. Once a patient is on a
statin, testing for LDL cholesterol may be
considered on an individual basis to, for
example, monitor adherence and efficacy.
In cases where patients are adherent, but
LDL cholesterol level is not responding, clinical
judgment is recommended to determine
the need for and timing of lipid panels.
In individual patients, the highly variable
LDL cholesterol–lowering response seen
with statins is poorly understood (46). Reduction
of CVD events with statins correlates
very closely with LDL cholesterol
lowering (29). Clinicians should attempt to
find a dose or alternative statin that is tolerable,
if side effects occur. There is evidence
for significant LDL cholesterol
lowering from even extremely low, less
than daily, statin doses (47).
When maximally tolerated doses of statins
fail to significantly lower LDL cholesterol
(,30% reduction from the patient’s
baseline), there is no strong evidence that
combination therapy should be used to
achieve additional LDL cholesterol lowering.
Although niacin, fenofibrate, ezetimibe,
and bile acid sequestrants all offer
additional LDL cholesterol lowering to statins
alone, there is insufficient evidence
that such combination therapy provides a
significant increment in CVD risk reduction
over statin therapy alone.