Statins slow progression of aortic valve disease, says study

Researchers at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, USA, say that the results of a study confirm that the use of statins can slow the progression of aortic valve stenosis in patients with mild-to-moderate heart disease. They added that their findings demonstrate, for the first time, that aortic valves have "an active biology" that can be targeted with medical therapy.

The project was carried out at the Hospital Pedro Hispano in Portugal, where 121 patients with asymptomatic moderate-to-severe narrowing of the aortic valve were enrolled in an 18-month observation program. 61 of the participants, who had elevated cholesterol, were treated with 20mg/day of AstraZeneca's Crestor (rosuvastatin), while the remaining subjects received no statin. The treated group demonstrated a 50% improvement in the slowing of disease progression of valvular heart disease at 1.5 years.

The group's research, which will be published in the February 6 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, contradicts the findings of the earlier SALTIRE trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, which asserted that there was no such benefit from statin-based therapy. However, as Nalini Rajamannan, lead study investigator on the NMH program, explained "the patients in that study [SALTIRE] had largely advanced aortic disease," and added that clinical benefit was less likely to be observed in such a population.