Public pharmacies dispensed a medicine to prevent cardiovascular disease to 4.1 million people in 2021. The use of some drug groups differed between men and women. This is what the Foundation for Pharmaceutical Key Figures (SFK) writes in the Pharmaceutisch Weekblad.
Cardiovascular Risk Management
Cardiovascular risk management (CVRM) focuses on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. The group of drugs that is used for this is not clearly defined. The SFK considers the following groups to be CVRM drugs: antithrombotics, heart drugs, cholesterol lowering drugs and drugs against high blood pressure. The latter group has diuretics, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers and RAAS inhibitors as its main representatives.
Expenditure (declared drug costs plus pharmacy fee) on CVRM products through community pharmacies amounted to €1.18 billion in 2021. More than 4.1 million people received a CVRM product at least once; an increase of 2.6% compared to 2020. Most patients used different types of substances; usually a cholesterol lowering, blood pressure lowering and/or antithrombotic. On average, a patient used drugs from 2.5 different CVRM drug groups.
Of the 4.1 million people with a CVRM substance, 51.4% are women and 48.6% are men. In the NHG-Standard CVRM of the general practitioners, the risk of cardiovascular disease is estimated to be higher for men than for women. There are also differences in medication use between men and women. For example, on average men used more different CVRM drug groups: 2.7 versus 2.3 for the women. Viewed by group, women used a diuretic more often than men (55% of the users are women), especially the diuretics with potassium-sparing agents (71%).
The beta-blockers (53%) are also used more often by women, especially the combination preparations with a diuretic (64%). Men, on the other hand, use a cholesterol-lowering agent more often than women (56%), especially the combination preparations with another cholesterol-lowering agent or another CVRM agent (61%). Antithrombotics are also used more often by men (55%), vitamin K antagonists, platelet aggregation inhibitors and direct thrombin inhibitors (all 57%).
Men and women used different CVRM agents
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