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Study: Race not a factor in cardiac care of elderly By Bill Scanlon Race
doesn't affect care or outcome among elderly people with heart failure,
doctors from Denver Health and Yale University report in today's edition
of The Journal of the American Medical Association. That's the good news, said Dr.
Frederick Masoudi, cardiologist with Denver Health. More sobering are
findings that "many patients, regardless of race, still do not
receive the highest quality care for heart failure." Masoudi and colleague Dr. Edward
Havranek helped Yale researcher Saif Sathore examine the treatments and
outcomes of Medicare patients with heart failure. The study was unusually large,
tracking 30,000 patients nationwide, Masoudi said. One-third of patients,
black and white, didn't get the echocardiogram or other tests necessary
for a proper diagnosis, though, Masoudi said. "All groups had
sub-optimal care." "It's good news in that
there didn't appear to be any racial differences in quality care,"
said Masoudi. Some earlier studies had tended
to agree with the long-held assumption that blacks got delayed and less
aggressive treatment, and had worse outcomes. But the new study found that
while black Americans are disproportionately affected and have a higher
incidence and prevalence of heart failure than other racial groups, their
treatment was on a par with whites. The researchers found that more
black patients were prescribed ACE inhibitors, drugs for heart patients,
than were whites. They also found that black patients had a lower
mortality rate - 6 percent versus 11 percent after 30 days of treatment,
and 32 percent versus 40 percent after one year. The research at Denver Health
was supported by a grant from National Institutes of Health. Heart failure affects nearly 5
million people in the United States. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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