Simvastatin No Help Against Arterial Calcification

By David Douglas

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jul 19 - Compared with placebo, high-dose simvastatin treatment does not appear to reduce the progression of coronary artery calcified plaque or abdominal aortic calcium levels in subjects without symptoms of vascular disease, according to North Carolina-based researchers.

"We believe that our study and other controlled clinical trials indicate that benefits associated with statin medicines are not reflected in changes in coronary artery calcification measured using computed tomography," lead investigator Greg Terry told Reuters Health.

Terry and colleagues at Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, came to this conclusion after studying 80 subjects with an unfavorable lipid profile and other cardiovascular risk factors, who were randomized to simvastatin 80 mg daily or placebo.

At 1 year, total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL cholesterol decreased significantly in the active treatment group, but lipids remained unchanged in placebo patients.

However, coronary artery calcium volume increased by 9% in simvastatin patients and such plaque increased by 5% in placebo patients. Measures of abdominal aortic calcium also increased in both groups.

This study and previous blinded randomized trials, the investigators conclude, "do not support the beneficial effects of statin treatment on coronary artery calcium progression suggested by retrospective and open-label studies."

Am J Cardiol 2007;99:1714-1717.

# posted by roodbont @ 6:39 AM