Statins sustain cardiac victims

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Feb, 2005

Treating heart-attack patients earlier with a more aggressive regimen of cholesterol-lowering medicines may help diminish their chances of sustaining added complications later or dying after their heart attack, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found. The findings show benefits of treating patients who recently have suffered acute coronary syndromes with higher doses of the cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins soon after they experience heart-attack symptoms.

In the past, heart-attack patients were stabilized for several weeks or months and placed on low-cholesterol diets before physicians intervened with statin drugs. Patients given statin drugs earlier showed modest improvement in the rate of subsequent death, congestive heart failure, heart attack, and stroke compared with patients who received a later start of a lower-dose statin regimen.

According to the study, 14.4% of patients who received higher dosages of statins soon after a heart attack suffered other cardiac events such as heart attacks and strokes compared to 16.7% of patients getting later intervention with lower dosages of the cholesterol-lowering drugs.

"Until recently, little information was available about the timing of initiating statin drugs after a heart attack," points out James de Lemos, assistant professor of internal medicine. "The findings from the trial suggest that statins can be initiated earlier and in dosages well above the typical starting dose."