May 25 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of Leicester in England have developed a new urine test to help diagnose adherence to blood pressure medications to improve outcomes.
The study of 1,400 hypertensive patients who had taken the urine test showed non-adherence to prescribed medications was between 30 and 40 percent.
Non-adherence to medications leads to poorer cardiovascular outcomes and has cost the U.S. healthcare economy $100 billion.
Researchers point to a lack of clinically useful objective tests to determine adherence to medications by patients with high blood pressure.
Related
So the team at the University of Leicester created a biochemical screening method to determine non-adherence to high blood pressure medications in urine or blood using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.
Researchers created a National Center for Adherence Testing, or NCAT, at hospitals in Leicester and tested samples from 25 hypertension clinics in Britain.
The study was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Leicester, Manchester and the Czech Republic.
The study found that more than 41.6 percent of the British cohort and 31.5 percent of the Czech cohort were not taking their high blood pressure medication as directed by their doctor.
The research also showed that 14.5 percent of the British cohort and 12 percent of the Czech cohort were not taking any medications, and younger patients and women were less likely to adhere to prescribed medications.
"Given the high prevalence of non-adherence, we should assess patients, particularly those on multiple antihypertensive medications or those who do not have an expected response to treatment," Dr. Pankaj Gupta, of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Leicester, said in a press release.
The study was published in the journal Hypertension.
