Initiation of BP-lowering medication did not occur in many patients due to pandemic
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Researchers determined that nearly 500,000 people from England, Scotland and Wales should have initiated BP-lowering medication but did not during the first year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Measures to prevent infection spread were necessary and undoubtedly saved lives. The [U.K.’s National Health Service] has already taken important and positive steps toward identifying people with high blood pressure as early as possible,” Reecha Sofat, MBBS, BSc, associate director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre and Breckenridge Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool, said in a press release. “However, we need this focus to be sustained in the long term to prevent any increase in heart attacks and strokes, which will add to a health care system already under extreme pressure.”
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Sofat and colleagues analyzed deidentified patient-level data representing 1.32 billion records of community-dispensed CVD medications between April 2018 and July 2021.
Dispensing of antihypertensive medications declined between March 2020, the start of the pandemic, and July 2021, the researchers wrote in Nature Medicine.
During that period, 491,306 fewer people initiated antihypertensive treatment than expected, which projects to 13,662 additional CVD events, including 2,281 MIs and 3,474 strokes, if those individuals remain untreated, Sofat and colleagues wrote.
Compared with 2019, in the first half of 2021, 27,070 fewer individuals per month initiated antihypertensive therapy, the researchers found.
In addition, incident use of lipid-lowering therapies decreased by 16,744 patients per month in the first half of 2021 compared with 2019, but incident use of diabetes therapies other than insulin increased by 623 patients per month in the first half of 2021 compared with 2019, according to the researchers.
“Despite the incredible work done by [National Health Service] staff, our data show that we’re still not identifying people with cardiovascular risk factors at the same rate as we were before the pandemic,” Sofat said in the release. “Detecting these risk factors early and beginning medication where appropriate is crucial to manage them, helping more people to avoid a preventable heart attack or stroke so they can live in good health for longer.”
Reference:
- 500,000 missed out on blood pressure lowering drugs during pandemic. www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2023/january/500k-missed-out-on-blood-pressure-lowering-drugs-during-pandemic. Published Jan. 19, 2023. Accessed Feb. 6, 2023.
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