BMJ 1996;313:1143-1144 (2 November)

Letters

Costs in general practice

EDITOR,--P D P Pharoah and W Hollingworth have calculated the potential costs and benefits of the increased use of statins to prevent deaths from coronary heart disease in a health authority.1 A similar and simpler calculation can be done for the patients of a British general practice.

The results of the west of Scotland coronary prevention study of pravastatin treatment in men with raised cholesterol concentration showed a headline reduction of 32% in cardiovascular mortality and 22% in all cause mortality after five years.2 The Scandinavian simvastatin survival study of simvastatin treatment in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease addressed a related issue but in a group with a much higher risk of premature death.3

What are the costs and benefits of these interventions likely to be in practice?

In the case of primary prevention, a general practitioner's list of 2000 patients will contain about 75 men aged 45-65 . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Cost effectiveness of lowering cholesterol concentration with statins in patients with and without pre-existing coronary heart disease: life table method applied to health authority population
P D P Pharoah and W Hollingworth
BMJ 1996 312: 1443-1448. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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