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It was with great interest that we read the correspondence of Abud-Mendoza1 on our recent paper in which we described a decreased risk of developing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in statin users who continued their therapy for >1 year.2 We agree that prevention of cardiovascular disease in rheumatic diseases is of great importance.3 Whether statins decrease disease activity in SLE is, however, controversial since a recent meta-analysis of five controlled trials did not suggest any significant effect of statin therapy on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index.4 Unfortunately, in the UK’s Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)—an ongoing primary care database of anonymised medical records from general practitioners that was used in our study—no measurements for SLE activity before or after initiating statin therapy are available.2 We, however, do not think that statin …

Objective Determine the adherence to recommendations of concomitant proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) treatment in regular low-dose of aspirin (LDASA) users, taking factors associated with the probability of receiving a PPI into account. Design Cohort study. Setting Data were obtained from 120 Dutch primary care centres participating in the Netherlands Information Network of Primary Care (LINH). Participants Patients 18 years and older who were regularly prescribed LDASA (30–325 mg) in 2008–2010 were included. Main outcome measures Regular medication use was defined as receiving each consecutive prescription within 6 months after the previous one. Based on national guidelines, we categorised LDASA users into low and high gastrointestinal (GI) risk. A multilevel multivariable logistic regression analysis was applied to identify patient characteristics that influenced on the probability of regular PPI prescriptions. Results We identified 12 343 patients who started LDASA treatment, of whom 3213 (26%) were at increased risk of GI complications. In this group, concomitant regular use of PPI was 46%, 36% did not receive PPI prescriptions and 18% obtained prescriptions irregularly (p