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Drug Cuts the Risk to Heart Attack Patients By Half

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 18:01 CDT

HEART attack victims given a cholesterollowering drug as soon as they reach hospital are 50 per cent more likely to survive, say researchers.

The death rate is also halved in patients treated with a statin within 24 hours of having a heart attack, the biggest study of its kind shows.

The research, involving 174,000 patients, found statins cut the risk of a range of complications following a heart attack.

Researchers say the findings could result in early statin use becoming standard emergency treatment for heart attacks.

At present, those taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack are given clot-busting therapy and aspirin.

They would normally be given a statin drug some time during their stay because of their proven record in preventing repeat heart attacks.

Study leader Dr Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiology at the University of California, said: 'We've known that long-term statin therapy is beneficial, but we were surprised that early statin therapy showed such a striking effect immediately after having a heart attack.

'We also found that statins provided additional protection from other heart attack complications.' For the study, published today in the American Journal of Cardiology, researchers looked at records taken from a national database of 174,000 heart attack patients admitted to hospital.

They found that those who got statin therapy before entering hospital and less than 24 hours after a heart attack had a 54 per cent lower risk of dying in hospital than those not on statins.

Patients who were started on statins for the first time within 24 hours of being taken to hospital had a 58 per cent reduction in the risk of dying compared to those not taking the drugs.

Early statin use was linked with a lower risk of cardiac arrest, cardiac rupture and ventricular fibrillation.

Dr Fonarow said statins may help limit cell damage by reducing inflammation in the cardiovascular system.

The study's findings needed to be supported by a clinical trial, which might ultimately lead to statins becoming another tool for emergency treatment of heart attacks, he added.

About 300,000 have heart attacks in Britain each year, with 117,000 of them dying.

The heart-attack figure is rising because of more sophisticated detection methods for heart damage.

In about one-third of heart attacks, the patient dies before reaching hospital.

Statins are prescribed to more than a million patients a year after heart attacks, or in cases where there is a high risk of having one.

An estimated 6,000 lives a year are saved by the drugs.

Statins reduce blood levels of cholesterol by altering enzyme activity in the liver where cholesterol is made naturally to prevent its manufacture.

j.hope@dailymail.co.uk

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

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