Fig. 1Schematic flow diagram of study setting: 105 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) underwent atorvastatin 10 mg therapy as starting dose for reducing high low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (> 100 mg/dL) were enrolled for the study. After 6 months of treatment, the subjects were divided into a responder group (LDL-C < 100 mg/dL) or Non-Responder group (LDL-C ≥ 100 mg/dL). Thereafter, the Responder group was subdivided into a Remission maintenance group and Remission maintenance failure group. The Non-responder group was subdivided into a Delayed remission group and Remission failure group. Dosage modifications were made following a response to each dosage of atorvastatin.
Fig. 2Low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) profiles during the 5 years following initial therapy with atorvastatin 10 mg. Among 28 patients, 8 patients (A-H) used atorvastatin 10 mg as a starting and maintenance dosage without any change in dosage for the entire 5 year period. Of those 8 patients, 7 had final LDL-C levels below 100 mg/dL. Therefore, for this group, the 5-year response rate to an atorvastatin 10 mg fixed dosage was 87.5%.
Fig. 3Correlation between baseline low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and body mass index (BMI) (two significant risk factors for short-term non-response).There was significant correlation between these two risk factors. The correlation coefficient was 0.251 (P = 0.01).
Table 1Demographics and clinical characteristics of the study subjects
Table 2Demographics and clinical characteristics of responder and non-responder groups following 6 months of therapy
Table 3Responses following 12 months of therapy
Table 4Clinical characteristics of remission maintenance group and remission maintenance failure group in responder group following 12 months of therapy
Table 5Clinical characteristics of Remission maintenance group in Responder group and Remission failure group in Non-responder following 12 months of therapy
Table 6Response rate according to stratification by baseline LDL-C level following 6 months of therapy
Table 7Response rate according to stratification by BMI and WHO classification following 6 months of therapy