Dying of Cancer, but Still Taking a Statin?

Drugs to treat diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and other common conditions presumably offer little benefit to an older patient with a malignancy and only a short time to live. How often are these preventive medications stopped in terminal-cancer patients?

Researchers tabulated medications prescribed to Swedish patients (age, ≥65) who died between 2007 and 2013 with solid tumor diagnoses. Those with hematologic malignancies were excluded, as were those who appeared to suffer accidental deaths. Among more than 150,000 patients, the average number of prescribed medications rose from 7 to 10 during the last year of life. Drugs for diabetes were continued to the final month of life in 87% of patients who had received them for ≥1 year prev…