The rise of the statins and the burdening inefficiencies in liver monitoring

摘要

The prescribing of statins in the NHS has risen significantly over the years. In England, prescription items for statins that were dispensed in 2017 had increased by approximately 26 million compared to a decade ago. The updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance in 2014, which opened up statins to those with cardiovascular risk of 10–20%, is a likely contributing factor to the increase in the later part of the last decade. More recently, NHS England’s improvement review sets out a plan, part of the wider ‘NHS long term plan’, which aims to improve identification and management of raised cholesterol as well as expanding access to genetic testing for familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH). More specifically, their vision includes statins becoming available through high street chemists. Thus, there is mounting evidence to suggest that statin prescribing is likely to increase further in the future, with an associated increase in liver monitoring.