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William B. Applegate, MD,MPH

JAMA. 2002;288:495-497.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In this issue of THE JOURNAL, 2 articles present important new data that indicate persistence of use of statin therapy declines remarkably over time in 2 different elderly cohorts.^1-2 Benner and colleagues¹ used data from both New Jersey Medicaid and Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled programs (1990-1999) to determine adherence with prescribed medication over a given time interval. They also evaluated persistence, defined as the duration of time over which a patient continued to fill the statin prescriptions. Filled prescription intervals were used to calculate the proportion of days covered by a statin in each quarter of a year after initiation of therapy. In the study by Jackevicius and colleagues,² several large databases from Ontario, Canada (1994-1998), were merged, including one of drug benefits, another of hospital discharge summaries, and another of health insurance benefits. In this latter study, adherence was calculated simply as . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliation: Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC.

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