Little benefit or harm from deprescribing antihypertensives in aged care: study

Geriatrician Professor Daniel Chan highlighted the lack of harms from deprescribing and encouraged doctors to consider stepping down treatment.

Deprescribing antihypertensives for aged care patients does not alter outcomes for better or worse, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study compared usual care with a structured step-down program for patients aged 80 and older. However, it failed to replicate results from observational studies that showed benefits from reducing treatment.

It involved 1048 French patients (80% female; mean age 90) with a systolic blood pressure below 130mmHg who were taking an average of 2.5 antihypertensives.

For the step-down group, tapering began immediately, with the goal of ceasing one medication completely after three months, another at six months and then — if the patient was still taking other antihypertensives and their systolic blood pressure remained below 130mmHg — ceasing another medicine every six months.

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