Treatment of Hypertension in Elderly - Pharmacoeconomic Evaluation

Pharmacotherapy for hypertension is one of the most important public health problems. The number of people with hypertension increases in older age groups. Currently, there is a wide choice of antihypertensive drugs in the pharmaceutical market of Kazakhstan. One of the requirements for the drug is not only their clinical, also economic efficiency. The aim of the study was to conduct pharmacoeconomic analysis of the use of antihypertensive drugs in elderly patients. By random sampling, we selected and interviewed 500 patients aged over 40 years with a diagnosis of hypertension. Analysis of outpatient charts of these patients was performed. Pharmacoeconomic analysis was performed using the method of "cost minimization". The analysis of direct costs was based on marginal prices for 2014, analysis of average prices in Republic and average doses of the studying drugs The results showed that the lowest annual cost of treatment from the list of preferred drugs for control of hypertension accounted for beta-blockers atenolol and metoprolol (1.4 and 3.5 thousand tenge/year), whilethe most expensivewastreatment of hypertension by angiotensin receptor blockers losartan(15.4 thousand tenge/year). In our study, the difference between the most expensive (losartan) and least costly treatment (atenolol) was 91%. Low-cost drugs, such as atenolol, is appropriate to recommend for inclusion in the list of drugs for preferential provision of outpatients.