Margaret McCartney: We lack the tools to help patients decide about statins

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recently approved atorvastatin for people in England and Wales who have a 10% risk of a cardiovascular event within 10 years; it had previously been a 20% risk.1 GPs are advised to treat such people—which includes everyone older than 85—and to continually review everyone else in case they pass the 10% threshold.

This decision on funding statins is based primarily on cost effectiveness to the NHS.2 The press release from NICE mentioned the potential benefit to the population (namely, it “could help prevent up to 28 000 heart attacks and 16 000 strokes each year”3) but not the absolute benefit to the individual.

But life is more complicated than that: people make choices for multiple reasons. Many patients stop taking statins after starting them4; others, faced with the choice of taking a drug with a small chance of benefit, would rather not do so; and some people will want to take them no matter how low their risk may already be.

We lack the tools to accurately predict individual risk at such low thresholds—leading to overtreatment and, to a lesser extent, non-identification of risk.5 The general practice cake is finite; cutting a bigger slice for healthy people at lower risk means a smaller slice for people who have symptoms and are unwell. The chance of a longer life is offered to people who are willing to take tablets consistently, but we know that these compliant patients are already more likely to live longer, even when taking a placebo.6 7 This policy, which benefits people who are already the healthiest, has the potential to widen health inequalities.

Who is keeping an overview of where NICE is taking us? The conflicts of interest among the members on its drafting panels are buried in minutes rather than in the guidance itself, and we still lack public access to most of the trial data that NICE uses.8 But we are told to press ahead regardless when, most bewildering of all, we don’t have a decent shared decision aid—designed and tested for the five million more people advised to take statins—about the benefits and harms of statinisation and the management of cardiovascular risk.

“Should I take statins?” is a question asked of GPs every day. We urgently need better tools to allow guidance to guide, rather than dictate new targets. Our lack of resources to deal with such a common question simply isn’t acceptable.

http://www.bmj.com/

My highlight in red:  As many over 85's will probably be on a multiple meds regime adding statins that have many contraindications to commonly prescribed drugs could only exacerbate existing conditions.

If our HCP's are confused by the Nice guidelines that does not instill confidence in their patients. 

Graham