Saturday, October 20, 2007
statin
October 15, 2007 — Long-term follow-up of the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) has now been published, and the results show that men prescribed statin therapy for five years during the clinical-trial period had fewer cardiovascular events a decade later, despite a large majority of the study cohort having stopped taking their cholesterol-lowering medication.[1]
Over the posttrial period, when treatment was in the control of the patients and their physicians, there remained a statistically significant reduction in death from coronary heart disease or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) among those treated with statin therapy compared with those treated with placebo, report investigators.
"In the original report of our study, we described a significant reduction in the risk of coronary events with the use of pravastatin," write lead author Dr Ian Ford (University of Glasgow, Scotland) and the WOSCOPS investigators in the October 11, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "We now report that during an extended follow-up period of approximately 10 years after the end of the trial, there was evidence of an ongoing reduction in the risk of major coronary events among study participants treated with pravastatin during the trial."
The results, say investigators, are presumably due to the stabilization of existing plaque and a slowing of the progression of coronary artery disease.
In an editorial accompanying the published study,[2] Dr Michael Domanski (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, MD) writes that there should no longer be any doubt that the reduction of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol levels has a role in the prevention and treatment of disease.
"The central remaining que
