In the real life setting, fulfillment compliance with antihypertensive medications is effective in the primary prevention of cardiovascular outcomes.

In the general population of Lombardia, discontinuation of the initial single antihypertensive drug treatment is a common phenomenon, whereas switching to another monotherapy and to combination treatment occur at similarly much lower rates. Blockers of the renin-angiotensin system are associated with the lowest incidence of treatment discontinuation.

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of potentially severe drug-drug interactions (DDIs) and their relationship with age, sex and number of prescribed drugs. Methods: We analysed all prescriptions dispensed from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2003 to individuals aged 65 or more registered under the Local Health Authority of Lecco, a northern Italian province with a population of almost 330 000 persons. Elderly who received at least two co-administered prescriptions were selected to assess the presence of DDIs. Results: The prevalence of potentially severe DDIs was 16%, and rose with increasing patient's age and number of drugs prescribed. At multivariate analysis, the adjusted odds ratios rose from 1AE07 (95% CI 1AE03-1AE11) in patients aged 70-74 to 1AE52 (95% CI 1AE46-1AE60) in those aged 85 or older. Elderly taking more than five drugs on a chronic basis had a statistically significant higher risk of sever DDIs than those receiving less than 3 or 3-5 such drugs. Conclusions:The elderly constitutes a population at high risk of DDIs. As physicians still have some difficulty in managing this problem, it is essential to highlight for them, which factors raise the risk of DDIs.

Initiating treatment with a combination of two drugs is associated with a reduced risk of treatment discontinuation.

The VTS (Valutazione delle Tecnologie Sanitarie) framework has been successfully implemented at the end of 2011. From its inception, twenty-six technologies have been processed.