Background: In last two decades, there have been substantial changes in the pattern of lipid-modifying medicines utilisation
following the new treatment guidelines based on clinical trials. The main purpose of this study was to analyse the overall utilisation
and expenditure of lipid-modifying medicines in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina during an 11-year follow-up period
and to express its share in relation to the total cardiovascular medicines (C group) utilisation.
Methods: In this retrospective, observational study, medicines utilisation data were analysed between 2010 and 2020 period using the
ATC/DDD methodology and expressed as the number of DDD/1000 inhabitants/day (DDD/TID). The medicines expenditure analysis
was used to estimate the annual expenditure of medicines in Euro based on DDD.
Results: During the analysed period, the use of lipid-modifying medicines increased almost 3-times (12.82 DDD/TID in 2010 vs
34.32 DDD/TID in 2020), with a rise in expenditure from 1.24 million Euro to 2.15 million Euro in the same period. This was mainly
driven by an increased use of statins with 163.07%, and among these, rosuvastatin increased more than 1500-fold, and atorvastatin
with 106.95% increase. With the appearance of generics, simvastatin showed a constant decline, while the other lipid-modifying
medicines in relation to the total utilisation had a neglecting increase.
Conclusion: The use of lipid-modifying medicines in the Republic of Srpska has constantly increased and strongly corresponded to
the adopted treatment guidelines and the positive medicines list of health insurance fund. The results and trends are comparable with
other countries, but still the utilisation of lipid-lowering medicines represents the smallest share of total medicines use for the treatment
of cardiovascular diseases, compared to high-income countries.
