Statins used by millions of people to combat high cholesterol and heart disease can significantly lower the risk of suffering dangerous blood clots such as deep-vein thrombosis, a study has shown.
Research presented at the American College of Cardiology conference yesterday showed that healthy people taking rosuvastatin, which is marketed under the brand name Crestor, had a 43 per cent reduced risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE).
VTE is caused by the formation of blood clots in a vein, which disrupts the flow of blood to the heart. The most common types are deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), which often occurs in the legs or pelvis, and pulmonary embolism (PE), where part of a clot breaks off and lodges in the arteries that supply the lungs. PE is the single most common preventable cause of death in hospital patients.
Studies suggest that the annual incidence of VTE may be as high as 2 people per 1,000, with more than 25,000 people dying of VTE contracted while in hospital each year.
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Evidence presented to the Commons Health Select Committee in 2005 suggested that VTE is responsible for 10 per cent of all hospital deaths in the UK, and costs the NHS at least £640 million each year.
The findings, from a leading statin trial called Jupiter, which is published today online in The New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that there could be a wider use of statins in different types of patient. The trial included 17,802 healthy men and women assigned 20mg doses of either rosuvastatin or a placebo. Its aim was to assess whether statins should be given to apparently healthy individuals with higher levels of a protein known as CRP, which is linked to inflammation and cardiac problems.
During a median follow-up of 1.9 years – the Jupiter trial was stopped early based on evidence of a reduction in cardiovascular disease and death among patients treated with rosuvastatin – there was a 43 per cent reduction in the risk of VTE among those on statins.
Additional analysis suggested that there was a 55 per cent reduction in the risk of DVT.
Robert Glynn, the lead investigator, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. and his colleagues reported: “Venous thromboembolism is common, difficult to diagnose and costly to treat. Preventive strategies that have acceptable costs and side-effects are therefore needed. Widening the goal of treatment to include prevention of venous thromboembolism and death, in addition to arterial thrombosis, increases the estimated benefit of statin use.”
Mark Hlatky, a cardiologist at Stanford University who had no role in the study, said that although blood-clot prevention was not the drugs’ main purpose, “it might make some people who are on the fence decide to go on statins”. However, Dr Hlatky added that doctors might still be uneasy about expanding the use of statins simply for blood clots, which are a far less common cause of death than heart attacks.
Alex Gold, a doctor and the executive director of Clinical Development at Astra-Zeneca, which manufactures Crestor, welcomed the findings.
“This is the first time a statin has been shown to reduce the risk of VTE in a randomised, prospective study,” he said.
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