When Is It Appropriate To Disregard Guidelines In Medical Care?
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In an article appearing last week in the American Heart Journal, investigators concluded that if American doctors would prescribe for their patients with heart failure each of the six therapies which are most strongly recommended in current heart failure guidelines, 68,000 lives per year could be saved.
The following (for the interest of the reader, and for the convenience of any attorneys who may follow DrRich’s offerings), is an ordered list of these six proven, life-saving heart failure therapies, along with the number of American lives that could be saved each year if only American doctors would stop grossly under-utilizing them in violation of published guidelines:
- aldosterone antagonist therapy – 21,407 lives
- beta blockers – 12,922 lives
- implantable defibrillators (ICDs) – 12,179 lives
- cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) – 8317 lives
- hydralazine plus isosorbide – 6655 lives
- ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) – 6516 lives
The authors, of course, are careful to point out that their analysis is based on statistical methods, and thus must be counted as merely estimates of the magnitude of the benefit that would actually occur should American doctors suddenly begin managing their heart failure patients appropriately. (Their presentation of these estimates to five significant figures implies a level of precision far in excess of what can be justified, and therefore must be an oversight not only by the authors, but also by the reviewers and the editors. But still, one gets the idea. A lot of preventable deaths are being left on the table.)
Several studies have reported, over and over again, that fewer than half of American patients with heart failure Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a way to prolong our lives and to keep us healthy right up to the end? Ponce de León never found that Fountain of Youth, but science is still looking. What are the chances science will succeed? How’s it doing so far?
