Research revealed that people who have had a heart attack should immediately be offered a combination of cholesterol lowering drugs with statins and another cholesterol medication.
According to the study, persons with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), which includes those who have had a heart attack or unstable angina, had a 47% lower three-year mortality rate if they began taking ezetimibe and a high dose statin simultaneously.
The results indicate that out of every 21 patients taking the double treatment for three years, one death was prevented.
If treatment recommendations are altered to take the findings into account, researchers claim thousands of lives might be changed every year.
This study shows that if we act quickly and decisively to lower patients’ cholesterol with this combination of treatments, we can drastically reduce the risk of death.
The research was led by Maciej Banach, Professor of Cardiology at the Medical University of Lodz, Poland, and Adjunct Professor at the Ciccarone Centre for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA. The study included data on 1,536 patients with ACS who were part of the national Polish Registry of Acute Coronary Syndromes (PL-ACS).
