In this piece on increasing statin use among the elderly, Christine Cigolle points out that statins, as is the case with many other drugs increasingly used to treat this population, have not been tested adequately among those in their late 70s, 80s, and 90s. Cigolle says: “A challenge in caring for older adults…is that [they] frequently are not included as participants in the research studies that serve as the foundation/evidence base for disease management/treatment. Out of necessity, researchers and clinicians then extrapolate findings from research involving the middle-aged and the “young-old” to these older adults.”

More about Cigolle says lack of elderly in clinical drug trials requires clinicians to extrapolate in prescribing for this population >