Patients offered treatment for CHD need full information to make decision

BMJ 1998;316:1021 ( 28 March )

Letters

Patients offered treatment for CHD need full information to make decision

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Freemantle et al's editorial on the use of statins started a debate on treatment with cholesterol lowering drugs. ¹ ² The subsequent editorial by Muldoon and Criqui,³ and many ofthe letters on this issue,² continued to focus on identifyinga level of absolute risk reduction at which treatment of patientsat risk of coronary heart disease would be advised and, presumably,paid for by a healthcare service provider. In our opinion, mostof the discussion failed to separate the issue of rational policysetting by third party payers and that of individual decisionmaking by the doctor and patient.

Given the proved efficacy of some forms of lipid lowering drug treatment, payment policies by healthcare service providersobviously need to be drawn up with both costs and benefits inmind. This will inevitably result in decisions being made aboutthe subgroups of patients or level of risk for which . . . [Full text of this article]

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