Health Care Word of the Day - "Indication Creep"

Indication creep is defined as follows:

"An indication is a diagnosis of a disease, for which you have some treatment. So the indication here would be heart attack, or risk of heart attack. Statin studies have looked at people who are at very high risk of having another heart attack. ... You study these people and you find you can really reduce their risk of heart attack. OK, it's probably a good idea to prescribe these drugs to people who have heart attacks.

Then what happens is the manufacturer seeks to expand its market, and so the indication creeps outward, from people who have clearly benefited to more and more people for whom the evidence is much more shaky. We really don't have the evidence to say that giving statins to people who've never had a heart attack is going to reduce the risk of a heart attack. But they're given these drugs anyway because doctors think it's true and patients think it's true."

Interesting article that is flies in the face of consumer-directed healthcare.