Statins study stopped early after dramatic benefits found

A New Age Of Statins?
Because the patients in the study had a relatively low risk of heart attack, the absolute benefit of taking Crestor was still very small. There were only 400 heart attacks, strokes or heart surgeries among all 18,000 patients in the study. Overall, 95 patients had to be treated with Crestor for two years to prevent one angioplasty procedure, heart attack or other cardiovascular "event."
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Ridker wanted to conduct a big clinical trial to prove CRP's worth for guiding statin therapy. The National Institutes of Health told Ridker that such an expensive study should be funded by industry. But Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ), seller of top-selling statin Lipitor, rejected his plan for such a study. Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ) was going to fund it, but then its statin was withdrawn from the market for side effects. The U.S. division of AstraZeneca agreed to fund the study, but it almost stopped over concern about Crestor's side effects. The trial had to be expanded from just the U.S. and Canada to 26 countries to get it done.

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AstraZeneca's Cholesterol Win

After Crestor was approved in 2003, watchdog group Public Citizen argued it should be yanked from the market. The new study isn't perfect for evaluating safety. Patients were tried on the drug before the trial started, meaning those with obvious side effects were screened out, and Crestor was so effective the study was stopped ahead of schedule, limiting the safety data. Still, remaining worries should abate.

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Volunteers taking Crestor were also 20% less likely to die from any cause, a secondary goal of the trial

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Katharine said:

Thanks Pheonix. That is a great site.

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Trinkwasser said:

Some more different takes on the subject

http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/

http://www.spacedoc.net/index.php

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ath ... e-new-view

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