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Few Chinese adults at high CVD risk receive appropriate therapy
There is an increased need for the treatment of and risk mitigation for Chinese adults with high risk for CVD, according to findings published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Jianpeng Lu, MD, PhD, of the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases in Beijing, and colleagues analyzed data from the China PEACE national screening project to determine high CVD risk prevalence and treatment in addition to risk across population subgroups in 141 county-level regions in all 31 provinces in China.
The researchers assessed the rates of high CVD by age, sex, BMI, geographic region and socioeconomic status.
Statin and aspirin use among participants with high risk for CVD was also analyzed.
Of the 1,680,126 participants (mean age, 55 years; 40% men), 9.5% (95% CI, 9.5-9.6) had elevated risk for CVD, Lu and colleagues reported.
The researchers analyzed mixed models and found that participants with medical insurance, current alcohol use, obesity or Han ethnicity were at high risk for CVD.
A small number of participants with high CVD risk used statins (0.6%; 95% CI, 0.5-0.6) or aspirin (2.4%; 95% CI, 2.3-2.5), they wrote.
Of the participants with high risk for CVD and hypertension, 31.8% received antihypertensive medications.
“The low use of risk reduction therapies suggests a need for high-risk patients to reduce the CVD burden in China,” Liu and colleagues wrote.
In a related editorial, Paul K. Whelton, MD, MSc, Show Chwan professor of global public health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, and Lisandro D. Colantonio, MD, PhD, of the department of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, wrote: “The report by Lu and colleagues is an important call to action. It also should serve as a wake-up call for many other highly populated middle- and low-income countries where the CVD risk factor profile is worsening faster than the current health sector can respond to it. We hope that it will motivate these nations to take more decisive action.” – by Earl Holland Jr.
Disclosures: Lu and the editorial writers report no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.