Approximately 500,000 Canadians are living with heart failure with 50,000 new patients diagnosed every year. It is estimated that 40-50% of patients with heart failure will die within 5 years of diagnosis.
In clinical trials medical therapies for heart failure have demonstrated a reduction in mortality and morbidity, however, adherence to a strict drug regimen in the real world may be less than ideal for the best health outcomes.
Drs. Omid Kiamanesh and Mustafa Toma, from the University of British Columbia’s Division of Cardiology, are hoping to provide insight into this issue and recommendations for areas of improvement.
Patients who are treated outside the clinical trial setting are different from those who were enrolled in the trials that established the benefits of the drugs. General population patients tend to be older, have more comorbidities, and are not followed-up as closely as those enrolled in clinical trials. So, although therapy adherence was high in the studies that established their efficacy, the rate of use of these medications outside of clinical trials varies and seems to be dependent on the type of care the patients receive.
Most population studies examining the effects of medical therapies on heart failure patients and their outcomes have been limited to those over the age of 65. The study by Drs. Kiamanesh and Toma aims to be the first to describe age-specific differences in the use of recommended medical therapies and their effects on clinical outcomes in the treatment of heart failure in British Columbia.
PopData will be linking BC Ministry of Health and BC Vital Statistics Agency data with PharmaNet data for the project.
