A ‘Polypill’ Aimed At Preventing Cardiovascular Disease Could Prove Highly Cost-Effective For Use In Latin America

Abstract

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of administering a daily "polypill" consisting of three antihypertensive drugs, a statin, and aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease among high-risk patients in Latin America. We found that the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease could be reduced by 15 percent in women and by 21 percent in men if the polypill were used by people with a risk of cardiovascular disease equal to or greater than 15 percent over ten years. Attaining this goal would require treating 26 percent of the population at a cost of $34-$36 per quality-adjusted life-year. Offering the polypill to women at high risk and to men age fifty-five or older would be the best approach and would yield acceptable incremental cost-effectiveness ratios. The polypill would be very cost-effective even in the country with the lowest gross national income in our study. However, policy makers must weigh the value of intervention with the polypill against other interventions, as well as their country's willingness and ability to pay for the intervention.

Global Perspective on Acute Coronary Syndrome

“…184 If the challenges in developing a polypill are overcome, it is possible that this, too, will be a cost-effective and essential tool for prevention. 185,186 …”

Cost-effectiveness of a fixed dose combination (polypill) in secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases in India: Within-trial cost-effectiveness analysis of the UMPIRE trial

“…But, a polypill strategy would be more costeffective than usual care. Previous studies have modelled CVD reduction on the assumption of aspirin adherence and sustained BP and LDL-c reductions and the established relationships between these risk factor changes and CVD events in past trials (23,24,37,38). A decision modelling study conducted within the Dutch health system found that the polypill would be a cost-effective strategy in individuals with a 10 year cardiovascular (CV) risk of 7.5% (26).…”

Improving Cardiovascular Protection: Focus On a Cardiovascular Polypill

“…Therefore, medication nonadherence increases the use of other drugs and this secondarily raises the risk of nonadherence as well as costs [67,68]. As a result, it is not surprising that different studies have demonstrated that the use of polypill is a cost-effective approach to improve medication adherence and cardiovascular risk factors control rates [69][70][71].…”