Aged People May Be Undertreated for CVD

Insufficient elderly individuals are being administered statins, argue experts in the BMJ.

This finding illustrates the demand for "a stronger facts basis and clearer steps for people aged over 75," they write.

Richard McManus (University of Oxford, UK) and team also discovered that females are definitely not undertreated for the primary protection against cardiovascular disease (CVD), opposed to previous research results of undertreatment for secondary avoidance.

Their own study confirmed that the proportion of persons without a history of CVD at baseline who exactly received antihypertensive drugs elevated as it gets older. Indeed, of persons aged 40 to 44 years, 5% obtained antihypertensive drugs in comparison to 57% of persons aged 85 years or above.

The proportion of individuals taking statins also increased with age, at 3% of those aged 40‑44 years versus 29% of those aged 70 to74 years.

However, in people aged 75 years and over, the chance from being administered a statin diminished with every 5-year increment in age; add an odds ratio of 12.9 for affected individuals aged 75 to ‘79 years in comparison to 5.7 for individuals aged 85 years and more aged.

Of note, you could never find significant differences in prescription developments by male or female. "This happens to be surprising given that at any age men are at greater danger of a CVD event compared to women," remark the authors.

There exists a striking contrast between utilization of statins and utilize of antihypertensive drugs in aged people, which does aspect to possible underuse of statins," they add.