Medication adherence in patients with carotid artery stenosis before/after enrollment in CARUSO study

Background: this work analyses the medical therapy adherence of patients enrolled in a clinical study. The primary end- point of this research is to find out if enrolment in a clinical study can improve adherence to antiplatelet and/or lipid- lowering therapy.Materials and Methods: the first 92 asymptomatic patients with carotid artery stenosis ≥50% enrolled in the CARUSO study were considered. Overall baseline “compliance” to anti-platelet treatment was stratified in patients with good, average, and poor adherence. Results: overall compliance with anti-platelet therapy was good for 66 patients (95.7%) out of 69 patients already under this treatment. A significant correlation between good adherence to pharmacological therapy and the presence of previ- ous cardiovascular events at the time of enrolment: 92.3% (one event), 84.6% (two events), 50% (three events) vs 35.1% of those without events (p<0.001). After 6 months, good adherence was found to extend even to patients with no previ- ous events (p=0.083). Conclusions: this research showed a positive trend in improving adherence to lipid-lowering therapy (88.3% vs 56.7%, p=0.002) and maintenance of a high level (> 95%) of adherence to anti-platelet therapy, after the enrolment in a clinical study.