Role of Community Pharmacies in Spreading the Concept of Vascular Aging in Daily Clinical Practice

Abstract The concept of vascular aging has emerged in recent years as a comprehensive and easily understandable way for assessing cardiovascular (CV) risk, especially in subjects whose risk is underestimated by classic risk tables. However, knowledge among clinicians is very limited, and its use in daily clinical practice is even less common. Furthermore, community pharmacies are an integral part of the healthcare systems. These are highly accessible health professionals with adequate training who deserve greater responsibility in the management of hypertension and CV risk. Simultaneously, it is noteworthy that new devices have emerged on the market that allow early vascular aging (EVA) to be measured in a simple and reliable way based on estimated pulse-wave velocity. Our objective is to describe the evidence on the role of community pharmacies in assessing EVA according to published evidence. To our knowledge, there are four studies performed in Austria, Portugal, and Spain. The main results of this review are: (1) community pharmacies have demonstrated their ability to carry out large-scale vascular age estimation in international, community-based healthcare environment; (2) the prevalence of preclinical arterial damage (EVA) in the population of pharmacy customers does not differ in subjects who spontaneously visit community pharmacies compared to the general population; (3) the determining factors of arterial stiffness are very similar in the three countries studied; (4) the estimation of pulse-wave velocity in community pharmacies simultaneously involves the determination of blood pressure, demonstrating a poor control of hypertension—both in known and unknown hypertensive patients and similarly in all three countries. The determination of EVA is not superimposable to the measurement of blood pressure and provides added value in terms of vascular risk management.