ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Lipids in Cardiovascular Disease
Lipid management in high cardiovascular risk patients in France: A comparison with rest of Europe patients from 1-year follow-up of SANTORINI
Jean FERRIERES 1
Kausik K Ray 2
Alberico Luigi Catapano 3,4
Radhouan Allouche 5
Christian Becker 6
Aurélie Bardet 6
Michel Farnier 7
1. Department of Cardiology and INSERM UMR 1295, Toulouse Rangueil University Hospital, Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
2. Imperial Centre for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, ICTU-Global, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
3. Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
4. University of Milan Multimedica IRCCS, Milan, Italy
5. Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH, Rueil-Malmaison, France
6. Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH, Munich, Germany
7. PEC2 team, UR7460, University of Burgundy Europe, Dijon, France
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Abstract
Background: The SANTORINI study (NCT04271280) was designed to assess lipid management in different European countries and care settings over 1 year of follow-up. Here, we report prospective findings of patient characteristics, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) goal attainment, and treatment patterns of lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) in France and the rest of Europe (RoE; without France) at 1-year follow-up. Materials and methods: Patients at high or very high cardiovascular (CV) risk were recruited across 14 European countries from 17 March 2020 to 11 February 2021 and followed for 1 year of prospective follow-up. Results: Among 9559 patients enrolled in the study, 8802 with available risk classification data and 7210 with available LDL-C data at baseline and 1-year follow-up were included. Of patients with available LDL-C data, 621 were included in the France cohort and 6589 were included in the RoE cohort. In the France cohort (full analysis set for risk), investigators classified 20.1% and 79.9% of patients as high and very high CV risk, respectively. When CV risk was recalculated centrally as per the 2019 European Society of Cardiology/European Atherosclerosis Society guidelines, 7.1% and 92.9% of patients in the France cohort were considered high and very high risk, respectively. Total LLT monotherapy and combination therapy use over 1 year increased from 51.2% to 58.5% and 25.3% to 38.2%, respectively. Overall, mean (standard deviation) LDL-C level decreased from 2.6 (1.3) mmol/L to 2.2 (1.2) mmol/L, and LDL-C goal attainment increased from 14.8% to 23.4%. Results in the France cohort were consistent with those observed in the RoE cohort. Conclusions: While use of combination LLT and LDL-C goal attainment increased in the France cohort over 1 year of follow-up, the majority of patients remained at an increased risk of CV events.
Summary
Keywords
cardiovascular risk, cohort study, combination therapy, Lipid-lowering therapy, Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, Observational
Received
17 November 2025
Accepted
26 January 2026
Copyright
© 2026 FERRIERES, Ray, Catapano, Allouche, Becker, Bardet and Farnier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Jean FERRIERES
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