Comparative effectiveness of disease-modifying-drugs in elderly patients after incident hospitalization for heart failure

Beta-blockers (BB), ACE inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEi/ARBs) and aldosterone antagonists (AA) do represent disease modifying drugs and have become the cornerstone of heart failure (HF) pharmacological therapy [1]. However, it is never safe to assume that treatments of proven efficacy in younger, healthier patients will provide equivalent benefit in older patients [2] but current guidelines rarely distinguish the use of these therapies on the basis of age [3]. To help clarify these issues a retrospective cohort study was undertaken by identifying all patients hospitalized for HF and never hospitalized for HF in the previous 10 years, discharged from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2010 in the Emilia–Romagna Region.