Cost offset of lipid-lowering drugs for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease

Abstract

This review aims to perform an adherence-based pharmacoeconomic evaluation of patients receiving statin therapy. A population-based study was performed. All patients receiving statins between January 1996 and December 1999 were included in the study. Both prescriptions for statins and cardiovascular events recorded from enrolment to December 2000 were considered. A total of 18,596 patients were included in the study. The positive cost offset of treatment was demonstrated (€30.70 for cardiovascular events avoided per €100 allocated for statin therapy). The increasing of the percent cost offset was found to be related to older age, male gender and secondary prevention. This study underlined low rates of adherence to statin therapy, thus many patients may receive no or limited benefits from pharmacologic treatment.

Keywords::

• adherence with treatment
• administrative databases
• cost-offset analysis
• lipid-lowering drugs
• pharmacoeconomics