title: Therapeutic goal attainment in patients with hypertension and dyslipidemia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent guidelines emphasize the need to assess and treat overall risk for cardiovascular disease through the concomitant management of multiple risk factors. We sought to ascertain treatment patterns and attainment of therapeutic goals in patients with isolated and concomitant hypertension and dyslipidemia, both with and without diabetes mellitus (DM) and symptomatic cardiovascular disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  Inception cohorts of more than 41,000 newly diagnosed hypertension and dyslipidemia patients from 6 medical centers of the south-central Veterans Affairs health care system were evaluated. Treatment patterns and goal attainment for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C; Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults guidelines: <160, <130, or <or=100 mg/dL depending on risk factors) and blood pressure (BP; Joint National Committee 6: <140/90 or <130/85 mm Hg depending on risk factors) were measured at 1 year. Separate analyses were conducted in patients with and without DM and symptomatic cardiovascular disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Treatment rates in patients with and without DM and symptomatic disease ranged from 46.6% to 71.3% in patients with hypertension only, from 31.5% to 64.1% in patients with dyslipidemia only, and from 64.3% to 91.3% in patients with both conditions. Among asymptomatic patients, 40.6% of nondiabetics and 20.6% of patients with DM with isolated hypertension reached BP targets. Attainment of LDL-C goals was slightly higher and reached 52.8% among patients with DM with concomitant hypertension. Among symptomatic patients, attainment of all goals was <40% for all groups. The proportion of asymptomatic patients with concomitant disease reaching goal for both BP and LDL-C was 24.4% among nondiabetics and 15.4% among patients with DM; these proportions decreased to 13.6% and 13.4% respectively, among patients with symptomatic cardiovascular disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The majority of patients were receiving pharmacological treatment of hypertension and dyslipidemia, yet attainment of therapeutic goals was generally <50%. Further work is needed to determine factors related to improvement in management and outcomes of patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors.
authors.affiliation: Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Department of Medicine, Section of Health Services Research, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. mjohnson@bcm.tmc.edu
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pietz
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Battleman
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Beyth
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus; D050171:Dyslipidemias / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D000960:Hypolipidemic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D015144:Southeastern United States; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D000959:Antihypertensive Agents; D000960:Hypolipidemic Agents