Statins exert class effect in heart failure
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Research shows that statins, as a class and at relatively low doses, appear to reduce death among elderly people with congestive heart failure (CHF).
“We believe such results, given the cost differences among agents, have potentially important health policy implications,” Dr. Louise Pilote from the University of Montreal, Canada and colleagues write in the American Heart Journal.
They examined the relative effectiveness of different statins in elderly patients to determine whether statins exert a class effect on long-term survival in patients hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of CHF—a chronic condition in which the heart fails to pump blood efficiently to the body’s organs. It can be caused by a number of things including clogged arteries, heart attack and high blood pressure.
The researchers identified 15,368 such patients 65 years of age or older who were prescribed a statin at discharge from the hospital and who filled the prescription. They found that atorvastatin, pravastatin, lovastatin, and simvastatin all afforded fairly similar protection.
Drug dosages were relatively low, with 82 percent of patients receiving a dose of 20 milligrams or less. Doses above 10 milligrams for atorvastatin or above 40 milligrams for the other statins did not confer additional protection against death, the report indicates.
The protection afforded by statin treatment persisted after Pilote and colleagues excluded patients with a prior heart attack, percutaneous coronary intervention, or coronary artery bypass graft surgery within the 3 years before or during they were hospitalized.
“Our study demonstrates that statins exert a class effect in patients with CHF, at relatively low dose,” the investigators conclude.
SOURCE: American Heart Journal, February 2008.
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