Skip to main content

High potency statins linked to better outcome following a heart attack

A study looking at the data of thousands of patients who suffered heart attacks has suggested treatment with high-potency statins offers a significantly improved chance of survival compared to those taking normal statins. Results of the study were published online in the journal Heart.

The study, led by the University of Dundee and on which I was a collaborator, also found a combination of statins and the drug ezetimibe showed no improved survival rate, although researchers caution this finding needs further testing.

'There is presently a lot of interest in ezetimibe as a potential treatment for heart patients,' said Professor Chim Lang, from the Division of Cardiovascular and Diabetes Medicine at the University of Dundee Medical School.

'Ezetimibe has been shown to be very effective at lowering cholesterol but we do not know its effect on survival. The key question really is whether it is better than statins, especially high potency statins such as rosuvastatin or atorvastatin.

 What our study has showed, looking at the data from thousands of patients in the UK, is that patients who switched from normal statin treatment to high potency statins lived longer.

 Those who had ezetimibe added did not appear to have a better outcome. So for the moment the data supports the use of high potency statins, one of which, atorvastatin, is now off patent and is cheap and effective.'

Data for the study was drawn from the UK's Clinical Practice Research Datalink. We looked at the data for patients who had survived 30 days after their first heart attack, who had not received prior statin or ezetimibe therapy, and who were started on a statin within that period of their attack.

The data of 9597 patients was used. 6990 of those were treated with simvastatin, 1883 had switched to a more potent statin, and 724 were given an ezetimibe/statin combination.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the difference between primordial prevention and primary prevention?

Primordial prevention and primary prevention are both crucial strategies for promoting health, but they operate at different levels. Primordial prevention aims to address the root causes of health problems and improve the wider determinants of health. It focuses on preventing the emergence of risk factors in the first place by tackling the underlying social, economic, and environmental determinants of health. This involves broad, population-wide interventions such as: Policies that promote healthy food choices: Think about initiatives like taxing sugary drinks to discourage unhealthy consumption, or providing subsidies for fruits and vegetables to make them more accessible. Urban planning that prioritises well-being: This could include creating walkable neighborhoods with safe cycling routes, ensuring access to green spaces for recreation and relaxation, and designing communities that foster social connections. Social programs that address inequality: Initiatives aimed at reducing pov...
Post a Comment
Read more

UK Covid-19 Inquiry - The Importance of a Strong Primary Healthcare System

In my witness statement for Module 10 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, I discuss the pandemic's impact through from the perspectives of  primary care and public health, drawing on my extensive experience as a senior academic at Imperial College London and as a practising GP and NHS Public Health Specialist.  I emphasise that the pandemic disproportionately affected people who were clinically vulnerable, the disabled, ethnic minority communities and those living in deprived areas. The pandemic highlighted how structural inequalities, multigenerational housing, and employment in high-risk frontline roles exacerbated health disparities.  My statement also critiques the weakening of public health infrastructure - particularly for the control of infectious diseases - and the lack of integrated health data systems to identify at-risk groups such as the clinically vulnerable. I also advocated for a more robust preventive healthcare model that prioritises community-based primary care ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Relevance Over Recall: Rethinking How AI Uses Clinical Data

Our article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine argues that safe and effective AI in healthcare must incorporate mechanisms that emulate human judgement - down-weighting old, inaccurate or superseded information and prioritising what is recent, clinically relevant and reaffirmed - so that AI supports, rather than disrupts, high-quality patient care.  Clinicians constantly revise, reinterpret and filter past information so that only what is relevant, accurate and timely shapes present-day management decisions; medical records function as dynamic “working tools” rather than fixed archives. By contrast, many AI systems lack this capacity for selective forgetting and often treat all historical data as equally meaningful.  This can lead to outdated or low-confidence diagnoses being repeatedly resurfaced, persistent labels influencing clinical expectations, and irrelevant, long-resolved events cluttering summaries and decision-support outputs. Such indiscriminate recall...
Post a Comment
Read more