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COMMENTS AND OPINIONS
Continuation of Statin Treatment and Mortality: A Note of Caution on Excessive Benefits
Kristian B. Filion, MSc;
Verena Schneider-Lindner, MD, MSc;
Igor Karp, PhD;
Linda E. Lévesque, PhD;
James M. Brophy, MD, PhD;
Samy Suissa, PhD
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
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We suggest that methodological issues specific to observational database studies may have contributed to the surprisingly large benefits of statin treatment reported by Shalev and colleagues1 when compared with a meta-analysis of secondary prevention trials that showed only a 16% reduction in mortality.2
First, the use of mean proportion of days covered (PDC) over the entire follow-up, as a measure of adherence, may have led to biased results. This measure was computed once for each patient, and the value was applied to all person-moments of follow-up of the patient. This requires the strong assumption of stable prescribing patterns during follow-up, which is unlikely. For example, assuming 30-day prescriptions, patients with a PDC of less than 10% would have needed, by definition, to survive a minimum of 300 . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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ABSTRACT
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