QStatin - risk of unintended effects from statin medication

QStatin is a risk prediction algorithm which calculates an individual’s risk of cataract, myopathy, acute renal failure and liver dysfunction taking account of their individual risk factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, clinical values and diagnoses. The outcomes are identified according to clinical codes recorded on the primary care record or the linked mortality or hospital record. The research describing the derivation and validation of the algorithm has been published in the BMJ.

QStatin is used to quantify an individual’s risk in order to prioritise and inform decisions regarding interventions to lower risk. It is updated regularly to ensure the algorithms remain calibrated to the current population since the incidence of disease and the prevalence of risk factors changes over time. The updates also enable the algorithm to take account of improvements to data quality (for example increases in the completeness of recording of risk factors such as ethnicity or laboratory values) and also allows adaptations to any changes which might be required to improve the predictive power of the tool or the population to which is applied.

Risk factors for unintended effects of statin medication linked to both the outcomes and prescription data for statins

Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox, Professor Carol Coupland