A new dimension to heart treatment

A study involving an anti-cholesterol drug revealed that risks of heart diseases were diminished even in people with low to normal cholesterol levels.

This was reported in a large study known as JUPITER or Justification for the Use of Sta­tins in Primary Prevention: An Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin.

The results of the landmark trial showed that rosuvastatin calcium 20mg significantly reduced major cardiovascular events which was seen in men and women with elevated high sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) but with low to normal cholesterol levels.

Rosuvastatin calcium is a drug that lowers LDL-C (bad) cholesterol and increases HDL-C (good) cholesterol

Dr. Paul Ridker, lead author of the landmark trial and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, emphasized that the results are very significant in the practice of cardiology.

“The results are relevant for patient care and prevention of heart attack and stroke,” Ridker said. 

The results of the JUPITER study were presented in the recent American Heart Association (AHA) 2008 Scientific Sessions held in New Orleans, Louisiana, and were simultaneously published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The results of the JUPITER study posed a great impact and challenge on preventive cardiology.

Dr. Steven Nissen of Cleveland Clinic in Ohio said this study is one of the most important clinical trials in the long history of statin studies.

“Such large reduction in clinical event in less than two years among patients considered healthy by conventional definitions is likely to change the guidelines,” Nissen said.

Meanwhile, Dr. James Stein of the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, reiterated the sentiments of others when he said the findings are going to pose challenges, particularly as clinicians struggle with changing how they think about and treat seemingly low-risk patients.

“It (JUPITER) is a true landmark in preventive cardiology, not only for its findings, but even more so for the challenges it raises to our current strategies for use of cholesterol-lowering medications and to our risk-assessment paradigms,” noted Stein.