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Senior Citizen Health & Medicine
Senior Citizens Pay Billions for Top Cholesterol
Fighters: Liptor, Zocor
Liptor earned $9 billion U.S. dollars in 2004 from
all adults
 Sept. 12, 2007 Lipitor, the cholesterol-reducing
statin drug, brought in more dollars about $9 billion - from U.S.
adults in 2004 than any other drug. Senior citizens paid $4.35 billion,
while all other adults over age 18 plunked down almost $5 billion,
according to the latest News and Numbers from
the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
For people age 65 and older, another
cholesterol-fighter, Zocor, ranked second in total spending ($2.4
billion), followed by Plavix, an antiplatlet drug ($1.7 billion),
Norvasc, a calcium channel blocker that can be used to treat high blood
pressure and certain kinds of chest pain, such as angina ($1.5 billion),
and stomach acid fighter Nexium ($1.5 billion).
For the adults under 65, Nexium ($2.7 billion) came
in second, followed closely in third by Prevacid ($2.4 billion) both
proton-pump inhibitor drugs
that reduce stomach acid. In fourth
place was Zocor (2.3 billion). Zoloft, an
antidepressant ($1.9 billion), ranked fifth.
For children age 17 and under, the top five drugs
when ranked by total expenses were Singulair ($680 million), a
medication that can be used to control asthma, ranked first; Concerta
($490 million), Strattera ($430 million), and Adderall ($410 million),
drugs commonly used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder,
ranked second, third and fifth, respectively; and Zyrtec, an
antihistamine ($420 million), ranked fourth.
Editors Note:
AHRQ, which is part of
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, works to enhance the
quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care in the
United States. The data in this AHRQ News and Numbers summary are taken
from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a highly detailed
source of information on the health services used by Americans, the
frequency with which they use them, the cost of those services, and how
they are paid.
More information is
available in
The Top Five Outpatient Prescription Drugs Ranked by the Expense for
Children, Adults, and the Elderly, 2004.
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