Antihypertensive overtreatment in people 80 years old and older.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

To study the proportion of patients older than 80 years old with hypertension and pharmacological overtreatment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Cross-sectional simulation study, including 281 patients older than 80 years old of primary prevention, randomly selected, with good control of hypertension (systolic blood pressure<150mmHg, diastolic blood pressure<90mmHg), treated with a maximum of 3 medications. Overtreatment was considered if at least one medication could be removed and good control persisted, calculating how the blood pressure would raise with Law's meta-analysis, which estimates blood pressure reductions by pre-treatment levels, number and dose of medications.

RESULTS

The average age was 85.3 years (64.8% women). A percentage of 33.6 were taking one medication, 46.3% 2 and 22.1% 3, with the most prescribed being thiazides (69.4%), ACE inhibitors (51.3%), ARBs (23.4%), calcium antagonists (21%) and beta blockers (19.6%). Overtreatment was 90.7%, with 2 medications being able to be removed in 63.1% of cases and 3 in 43.1%. Polypharmacy (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.07-5.69; P=.033) was associated with a greater likely removal of at least one medication.

CONCLUSIONS

The proportion of patients with overtreatment is high. Changing good control criteria could contribute to a reasoned deprescription.