Drugs for heart failure are still under-prescribed, years after initial study

UCLADr. Gregg FonarowFINDINGSA UCLA-led study found that many people with heart failure do not receive the medications recommended for them under guidelines set by the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and Heart Failure Society of America.The research also found that doctors frequently prescribe medications at doses lower than those recommended by the guidelines, especially for older people, those with kidney disease, those with worsening symptoms or those who were recently hospitalized for heart failure. Further study is needed to determine why people in those four groups specifically were prescribed lower-than-recommended doses.The study, which looked at the three categories of heart failure medications, found that between 27 percent and 67 percent of patients were not prescribed the recommended drugs. And when patients did receive the medications, they were generally at a lower-than-recommended dose. Less than 25 percent of patients simultaneously received all three medication types, and only 1 percent received the target doses of all three medication types.BACKGROUNDAbout 5.7 million people in the United States have heart failure, according to a 2016 report by the American Heart Association. Heart failure is associated with a lower quality of life and frequent hospitalizations, and it contributes to more than 300,000 deaths each year in the U.S. In half of people with heart failure, the disease is caused by a weak heart muscle that prevents the he...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news