LIPID Shows Mortality Benefit With Pravastatin

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sankyo's lipid-lowering drug pravastatin hasbecome the latest member of the statin class to show a significant benefit when given as secondary prevention against coronary heart disease mortality in patients who have suffered a myocardial infarction or who have unstable angina.

Results of the LIPID (Long-term Intervention with Pravastatin in Ischemic Disease) study were presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida. In contrast to other secondary trials with statins, LIPID-enrolled patients had average rather than elevated cholesterol levels (155-270mg/dL), and included a large number of angina patients. It was also the largest trial of its type, enrolling over 9,000 patients with a high proportion of women and the elderly, as well as 700 diabetics.

This cholesterol range encompasses the vast majority of people presenting with symptoms of MI or unstable angina, reported principal LIPID investigator Andrew Tonkin, director of health, medical and scientific affairs at the National Heart Foundation of Australia. "This is important in taking the results of the trial into clinical practice," he noted. Nearly 4,000 of the enrolled patients had total cholesterol levels lower than 215mg/dL.