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Heart Attack Deaths in Hospitals Reduced 50 Percent
by Early Statin Treatment
Aug. 29, 2005 – Statin drugs administered to
patients within the first 24 hours after a heart attack reduced hospital
deaths by over 50 percent, according to UCLA researchers who say this is
the largest clinical study of its kind.
The new study, published in the Sept. 1 issue of
the American Journal of Cardiology, demonstrates that early statin
therapy may be essential for reducing mortality and other complications
in heart attack victims.
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What are
statins?
Statin drugs are very effective for lowering LDL ("bad")
cholesterol levels and have few immediate short-term side
effects. They interrupt the formation of cholesterol from the
circulating blood. Commonly prescribed statins include:
Atorvastatin (Lipitor)
Fluvastatin (Lescol)
Lovastatin (Mevacor)
Pravastatin (Pravachol)
Rosuvastatin Calcium (Crestor)
Simvastatin (Zocor)
American Heart
Association
For
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Citizens and Baby Boomers -
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"We've known that long-term statin therapy is
beneficial, but this study provides the strongest clinical evidence to
date supporting the early cardioprotective effects of statins
immediately following a heart attack," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, lead
study author, The Eliot Corday Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine and
Science and professor of cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at
UCLA.
Researchers used data from over 170,000 patients
taken from the National Registry of Mycocardial Infarction 4, a national
database of patients who were admitted to a hospital due to a heart
attack.
They found that patients who had received statin
therapy before hospitalization and within 24 hours following a heart
attack had a 54 percent lower risk of in-hospital mortality compared to
patients not on statin therapy.
Patients who had not received previous statin
therapy, but who were newly started on the medication within 24 hours of
hospitalization had a 58 percent reduction in mortality compared to
patients not on statin therapy.
"We were surprised that early statin therapy showed such a striking
effect immediately after a heart attack,"said Fonarow, director,
Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center. "We also found that statins
provided additional protection from other heart attack complications as
well."
The study showed that early statin use was
associated with a lower incidence of cardiac arrest, cardiac shock,
cardiac rupture and ventricular fibrillation that can all occur
following a heart attack.
According to Fonarow, statins work by increasing
nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system, which offers a number of
benefits including reducing inflammation that may help limit cell damage
from a heart attack.
The next step is to develop a clinical trial to
corroborate these strong observational findings. Fonarow believes that
early statin use within 24 hours of a heart attack may become a standard
treatment. "As statins are already routinely started in myocardial
infarction patients prior to hospital discharge, it would be relatively
easy to administer this medication on arrival to the emergency
department." This year 1.5 million Americans will have a new or
recurrent heart attack.
Source:
The study was funded by Genentech,
Inc., the company that supports the National Registry of Myocardial
Infarction 4.
Fonarow is a consultant and has done
research for the following companies that manufacture statins: Merck &
Co., Inc.; Pfizer, Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
Other authors include: R. Scott
Wright, M.D., Mayo Clinic: Frederick A. Spencer, M.D., University of
Massachusetts; Paul D. Frederick, MPH, MBA, Ovation Research Group; Wei
Dong, M.D., Ph.D., Medical Affairs, Genentech, Inc.; Nathan Every, M.D.,
Ph.D., University of Washington; William J. French, M.D., Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center.
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