DESPITE a European study last year reporting statins had no benefit in healthy patients aged over 75 years, Australian experts criticised its methodology as flawed and now have the evidence demonstrating that statins do benefit these older age groups.
Health professionals and patients now have "definitive evidence" that "statins are safe, effective and reduce the risk of vascular events in all age groups studied, including those older than 75", according to an Australian-led review published in the Lancet.
The collaboration between Sydney researchers and University of Oxford researchers analysed data from 28 randomised controlled trials involving a total of nearly 187,000 patients, almost 14,500 of whom were over 75.
"Even if risk reduction in people older than 75 years is less than expected, statin therapy may still be justified by a high baseline cardiovascular risk, which is usually present in older people," said Professor Bernard Cheung of the Queen Mary hospital at the University of Hong Kong.
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