UK: Women and older people less likely to receive heart attack drugs

The Telegraph ^ | 9/1/2009 | Rebecca Smith

[bruinbirdman]

One in five people who have had a heart attack in Britain do not receive all four drugs recommended to prevent a second, a study of 60,000 people have found.

Guidelines say heart attack patients should be prescribed two blood pressure drugs, a cholesterol lowering statin and aspirin to thin the blood.

However research based on a database of all surviving heart attack patients in England and Wales has found one in 20 people received only one or two drugs.

Women and older people are less likely to receive all four drugs, the study by University of Leicester has found.

Only 29 per cent of people leaving hospital on all four drugs were women. In addition the average age of those on one drug was 82 while the average age of those on four was 67.

Lead author Prof Iain Squire, professor of cardiovascular medicine at University of Leicester and consultant at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, calculated that 2,000 out of the 5,000 deaths over the two year study period had been undertreated and 'could potentially have been avoided'.

He said: "The patients who are most likely to get undertreated are the elderly and females but they get incremental benefit for each drug they take so we should not be withholding these therapies based on age and gender alone."

People aged 65 to 74 were 20 per cent less likely to get all four drugs compared with those under 55; while people aged over 85 were three times less likely to get all four medicines.

The findings, based on an analysis of the national registry called the Myocardial Infarction National Audit Project collected between January 2004 and December 2005, were presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona.

It is thought doctors believe the drugs are less beneficial

[FlingWingFlyer]

That’s because the Brits already have OBAMACARE.

[pray4liberty]

I guess the cheap way is to lose a lot of weight and take aspirin?

[chippewaman]

ObamaCare coming (hopefully not) to a town or city near you.

[justkate]

"It is thought doctors believe the drugs are less beneficial and more difficult to use in older people, and that women do not gain as much as men from them.

But the study showed that the survival benefits are similar in women as in men and in the elderly, the research showed."

Research shows all 3 groups derive the same benefit, but doctors are prescribing them to one group...men. Could it be that women & the elderly "contribute" less to the system & men "put back" more?

Are doctors doing their own "freelance" form of rationing outside of NHS guidelines?