study. Total plasma cholesterol (TC) was reported in more than 60% of the patients and
low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc)
in less than half. Total plasma cholesterol and LDLc were controlled in 70.3 and 72.8%
of the patients, respectively. The percentage of controlled patients decreased to 64%
when both LDLc and TC were considered. Statins and fibrates were prescribed in a small
proportion of patients (16.9 and 3.5%, respectively). An acceptable control of blood lipids
was achieved in a majority of those patients (60.2%). However a relatively large number
of patients (646) with high plasma lipids remained untreated. CONCLUSIONS: Monitoring
and intervention strategies on plasma lipid levels in patients with a diagnosis of stroke or
TIA need to be improved.
prevalence of angina pectoris. Ital Heart J. 2005;6:49-51.
angina pectoris (AP) using self-reported information and primary care databases. ME-
THODS: A comparison between the prevalence of AP in 730,586 subjects from the Health
Search Database (HSD) and 119,799 individuals from a Health Interview Survey (HIS) was
performed. The age-specific prevalence was calculated by dividing the detected cases
by the total number of individuals in each age group. The age-standardized prevalence
was estimated by direct standardization performed using the Italian standard population.
RESULTS: The HSD reported a higher crude prevalence of AP than the HIS, both in males
(1374/100,000 vs 1006/100,000) and females (1449/100,000 vs 1007/100,000). In the
HSD the age-specific prevalence was lower for patients aged <65 years, whilst higher
estimates were reported for older patients. Age standardization slightly reduced the pre-
valence in both samples, although the HSD always reported higher estimates. CONCLU-
SIONS: Prescription data from general practice databases may be a valid, simple, and
cost-effective method to evaluate and serially monitor the prevalence of AP.
lationship with haloperidol, olanzapine, risperidone or quetiapine exposure. Int
Clin Psychopharmacol. 2005;20:33-37.
practice patients who were treated with haloperidol, olanzapine, risperidone or quetiapi-
ne monotherapy and in subjects who were not exposed to antipsychotics. The design was
a retrospective, up to 2 years, cohort study, with age-, sex- and length of observation-
matching between subjects who were exposed and not exposed to antipsychotic drugs.
Data were taken from the Health Search database, which contains information from 550
Italian general practitioners. Participants comprised 2,071 subjects taking haloperidol,
266 taking olanzapine, 567 taking risperidone and 109 taking quetiapine, in addition
to 6,026 age- and sex-matched subjects who were not using antipsychotic drugs during
the period of observation. Inclusion was limited to initially non-diabetic and antipsycho-
tic drug-free individuals. The main outcome measure was the incidence of drug-treated
diabetes. After age and sex correction by Cox regression analysis, the four groups treated
with antipsychotics significantly differed from untreated subjects in hazard ratios for dia-
betes. The ratios for the haloperidol, olanzapine, risperidone and quetiapine groups were
12.4 (95% confidence interval 6.3-24.5), 20.4 (6.9-60.3), 18.7 (8.2-42.8) and 33.7 (9.2-
123.6), respectively, with no significant differences when compared to each other.