Grant: Project Grant

Many clinical trials have demonstrated the benefits of statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) for preventing a first cardiovascular event in people at risk of such events. From an economic perspective, statin treatment for preventing a first cardiovascular event in people at high risk of a cardiovascular event would be advantageous. Unfortunately, few studies have investigated the benefits and risks of statins for preventing a first cardiovascular events in the elderly. Although these studies indicate there are benefits for these people as well, much remains to be known about the full range of benefits and risks. Data are particularly scarce for very old people, elderly that already have many diseases or those that are already taking multiple drugs. Finally, it is unclear if the benefits that have been observed in clinical trials fully translate in real life, because medical monitoring is often better in clinical trials than it is in real life. For instance, it is known that people do not take their statin medication as well in real life as they do in clinical trials. The primary goal of this project is to provide additional evidence regarding the real-life benefits and risks of statins medication in the elderly for preventing a first cardiovascular event. To do this, we will use data from anonymized population-wide administrative databases. We will examine the patterns of how the elderly get statin medication over time and see how these different patterns are associated with the occurrence of cardiovascular events, mortality or possible major side effects. We will also perform an economic evaluation of statin treatment. To be able to do this, we will first need to develop new data analysis methods. These methods will not only be essential to answer the important questions of the current project, but many other research questions regarding treatment patterns over time using administrative databases.