United States: A recent research discovery shows that a combination of statins and an additional cholesterol-lowering drug could cut down mortality rates by thousands.
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The complete research review on treatment methods for patients with blocked arteries demonstrates that doctors should provide ezetimibe alongside statins instead of statins as a single therapy.
Scientists recommend using combination therapy as the preferred medical approach since it would reduce yearly heart attack deaths for heart attack survivors.
How was the study conducted?
An analysis of 14 previous studies totaling 108353 very high-risk heart attack and stroke patients provided researchers with information to advance their findings.
Research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings demonstrated that ezetimibe with high-dose statins produced “significant” reductions of 19% in patients facing death from any cause.
The addition of ezetimibe to high-dose statins led to both cardiovascular death rate reduction at 16% and major adverse cardiovascular events and stroke rate reduction at 18% and 17% respectively.
According to the study’s first author, Professor Maciej Banach, of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, “These results were even more pronounced in the network meta-analysis, which enables a direct comparison of different therapy regimens used in the study.” getsurrey.co.uk reported.
“This showed a 49% reduction in all-cause mortality and a 39% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events, when compared to high dose statin therapy alone,” as the expert noted.
As Prof Banach, who also leads the International Lipid Expert Panel and the Blood Pressure Meta-analysis Collaboration group that conducted the study, stated, “The combination therapy is safe and efficacious.”
“The risk of adverse events and the therapy discontinuation rate was comparable between groups. In the network meta-analysis, we showed a significant 44% reduction in the risk of discontinuation in those treated with moderately high dose statin therapy plus ezetimibe versus a high dose statin alone,” the expert noted.