Statins Prescribed to Less Than Half of Stroke Patients, Despite Recommendations
A significant number of stroke patients are not being prescribed statins, despite recommendations, according to a recent study. The researchers attributed the lack of statin use to geographic discrepancies in prescribing trends.
For their study, the researchers examined discharge medication records for patients hospitalized for ischemic stroke during follow-up of the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study. Of the 666 eligible strokes, the researchers restricted their analysis to 323 participants who were not using statins at the time of admission and had no history of atrial fibrillation.
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Could Statins Improve Heart Structure and Function?
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Overall, only 48.7% were prescribed statins on discharge, despite recommendations from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association suggesting statin therapy for the reduction of risk of recurrent stroke and other cardiovascular events.
In the “Stroke Belt” (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia), individuals aged 65 years and older were 47% less likely to prescribed a statin at discharge than those younger than 65 years. Outside of the Stroke Belt, black individuals were more likely to receive a statin than white individuals. Men in the Stroke Belt were 31% less likely to be prescribed a statin than women, while men outside of the Stroke Belt were more likely to be prescribed a statin than women.
“Although statins have been shown to lower the risk of recurrent stroke, fewer than 50% of participants in a nationwide cohort study were prescribed a statin at the time of stroke hospital discharge,” the researchers concluded.
—Michael Potts
Reference:
Age and sex disparities in discharge statin prescribing in the stroke belt: evidence from the reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke study [published online August 2, 2017]. JAHA. doi: https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.117.005523.