1. Polypill: an affordable strategy for cardiovascular disease prevention in low-medium-income countries
- Author
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Andrés A. Serrano, Paul Camacho-Lopez, Silvia González-Gómez, Leonor Atuesta, Diego Zarate-Bernal, Johanna A. Otero, Patricio Lopez-Jaramillo, Claudia Castro-Valencia, and Christian Clausen
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Cost effectiveness ,Review ,030204 cardiovascular system & hematology ,Drug Costs ,Health Services Accessibility ,Medication Adherence ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Risk Factors ,medicine ,Secondary Prevention ,Humans ,Pharmacology (medical) ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Risk factor ,Intensive care medicine ,Polypill ,Developing Countries ,Antihypertensive Agents ,Hypolipidemic Agents ,Polypharmacy ,Polycap ,Fixed dose combination therapy ,business.industry ,Cardiovascular disease ,Clinical trial ,Primary Prevention ,Drug Combinations ,Treatment Outcome ,Cardiovascular Diseases ,Hypertension ,Income ,Platelet aggregation inhibitor ,Disease prevention ,Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine ,business ,Platelet Aggregation Inhibitors ,Compliance - Abstract
6 p., The simplification of fixed dose medications by using a single ‘polypill’ is an attractive strategy to improve adherence to medications which has shown benefit to cardiovascular risk factor control and cardiovascular disease prevention or delay in the progression of these diseases. We review the evidence obtained from a series of clinical trials demonstrating an improvement in adherence to the polypill compared to the use of each compound separately, and found similar or better control of the classical cardiovascular risk factors and a similar safety profile. These results suggest that the use of the polypill could have a beneficial impact in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, the polypill has the potential to improve cost effectiveness and is simple to use. However, before recommending the implementation of the polypill in programs aimed at primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention, we are awaiting the results of several current clinical trials aimed at measuring the impact on the frequency of major cardiovascular outcomes, particularly in low–medium-income countries.
- Published
- 2018
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