Lack of data makes statin use in older patients a guessing game
Physicians commonly grapple with the question of whether to prescribe statins to patients older than 75 who don’t have heart disease, according to a Jan. 5 New York Times story.
The newspaper pointed out the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association issued a series of primary prevention recommendations for the cholesterol-lowering drugs in 2013, but those guidelines were only applicable to adults up to age 75. There isn’t enough evidence to make recommendations for older patients, experts said, because clinical trials haven’t included enough of those patients to draw substantial conclusions.
Even though statins have been proven to lower cholesterol in adults across the age spectrum, The Times noted older patients may be more susceptible to the common side effect of myalgia—muscle aches sometimes combined with fatigue. And weighing a lower cholesterol figure against keeping elderly patients more mobile and active just adds to the conundrum.
“There are a lot of unknowns,” Ariela Orkaby, MD, a geriatrician at the Harvard Medical School, told The Times. “We don’t want to do harm by prescribing a medication. And we don’t want to do harm by withholding it.”
Read the full story below:
Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.