PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Evolocumab safely drops LDL cholesterol well below statin-only baseline

Results suggest role for 2-drug approach in cholesterol control

2014-03-31
(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — The monoclonal antibody evolocumab produced highly significant reductions in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the "bad cholesterol," as an add-on to statins in all treatment groups, according to data from the LAPLACE-2 study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. LDL cholesterol is considered a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. "High-risk patients – such as those with clinical cardiovascular disease, high LDL cholesterol levels or diabetes – are ideally treated with high-intensity statins that lower LDL cholesterol by at least 50 percent, but that isn't always possible," said Jennifer G. Robinson, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Prevention Intervention Center at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. "Many patients can't tolerate high-intensity statins and cannot achieve desired LDL reductions with moderate- or low-intensity statins, and those with high cholesterol levels often need more than high-intensity statins to lower LDL levels adequately." Robinson said evolocumab may be useful for these patients. Unlike statins, which are taken in pill form, evolocumab is administered as an injection. LAPLACE-2 is a large phase III study of evolocumab in patients randomly assigned to a high- or moderate-intensity statin to reduce LDL cholesterol. Evolocumab works by inhibiting PCSK9, which leads to an increase in the liver's ability to clear LDL cholesterol from the blood. High-intensity statins such as 80-mg atorvastatin and 40-mg rosuvastatin lower LDL by 50 percent or more; moderate-intensity statins such as 40-mg simvastatin, 10-mg atorvastatin and 5-mg rosuvastatin drop LDL levels by 30 to nearly 50 percent. Evolocumab was also compared with ezetimibe, another drug commonly used to lower LDL cholesterol. After a four-week period to stabilize lipids with one of these five statin regimens, 1,899 patients were randomly assigned to different doses and schedules of evolocumab or placebo, evolocumab and placebo, placebo and ezetimibe, or placebo only. All evolocumab-treated groups showed highly significant reductions in LDL cholesterol versus placebo: 66 percent to 75 percent on a schedule of evolocumab injections every two weeks, or 63 percent to 75 percent on a four-week schedule. Patients achieved an LDL cholesterol level of less than 70 mg/dL in 86 percent to 94 percent in the moderate-intensity statin groups and 93 percent to 95 percent in the high-intensity groups. Ezetimibe reduced LDL cholesterol by 17 percent to 20 percent in moderate-intensity statin groups and 51 percent to 62 percent in high-intensity groups. Adding evolocumab reduced LDL cholesterol levels to 39 mg/dL to 49 mg/dL with moderate-intensity statin regimens and 33 mg/dL to 39 mg/dL with high-intensity regimens. Evolocumab also significantly reduced non-HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B and lipoprotein (a) levels. Efficacy and safety endpoints were met. Evolocumab was well tolerated, with adverse event rates similar to those in placebo and ezetimibe-treated groups and no sign of liver damage or muscle problems. "Heart attack and stroke remain the leading cause of death in the United States and around the world," Robinson said. "People are excited about PCSK9 inhibitors because they'll let us test whether a whole lot more LDL lowering will result in large additional reductions in cardiovascular events in statin-treated patients." The ongoing FOURIER trial will assess whether additional lowering of LDL cholesterol with evolocumab, on top of high- and moderate-intensity statin therapy, reduces the number of cardiovascular events over a period of years. INFORMATION: Robinson was an investigator for LAPLACE-2 and consults for Amgen, which funded the study. The ACC's Annual Scientific Session brings together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists from around the world each year to share the newest discoveries in treatment and prevention. Follow @ACCMediaCenter and #ACC14 for the latest news from the meeting.

The American College of Cardiology is a nonprofit medical society comprised of 47,000 physicians, surgeons, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists and practice managers. The College is dedicated to transforming cardiovascular care, improving heart health and advancing quality improvement, patient-centered care, payment innovation and professionalism. The ACC also leads the formulation of important cardiovascular health policy, standards and guidelines. It bestows credentials upon cardiovascular specialists, provides professional education, supports and disseminates cardiovascular research, and operates national registries to measure and promote quality care. For more information, visit CardioSource.org.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Anti-gout medication colchicine helps patients with recurrent pericarditis

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — A medication traditionally used to treat gout is also effective at treating recurrent pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac-like covering around the heart, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. In the first multicenter, double-blind trial to look at the use of colchicine for multiple recurrences of pericarditis, 240 patients were randomly assigned to either the study drug or placebo to examine the primary endpoint of recurrent pericarditis. The rate of disease recurrence ...

Renal denervation patient registry finds low rate of adverse events

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — Patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure treated with renal denervation had low rates of adverse events and significant lowering of blood pressure at six months, according to a registry-based study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. The Global SYMPLICITY Registry is the first and largest dataset of patients with uncontrolled hypertension treated with renal denervation. The open-label, multicenter study was established to examine the safety and effectiveness of the procedure. Outcomes presented ...

Post-approval study of transcatheter pulmonary valve completes 1 year

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — The first post-FDA approval study of a non-surgically implanted replacement pulmonary valve showed strong short- and mid-term results for the device in a small sample of patients with certain congenital heart defects, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. This multi-center study of 100 patients consecutively implanted with the Melody transcatheter pulmonary valve between July 2010 and July 2012 assessed the effectiveness of the device at six and 12 months based on the percentage ...

Cardiac resynchronization improves survival in heart failure patients

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — Patients in mild heart failure who receive a specialized pacemaker known as cardiac resynchronization therapy with a defibrillator (CRT-D) may live longer than those implanted with a traditional implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. In the first study to look at CRT-D in mildly symptomatic patients, researchers found that patients with left bundle branch block implanted with a CRT-D had a 41 percent reduced risk of death compared ...

Blood test helps predict heart attack risk for patients with chest pain

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 30, 2014) — Patients presenting to the emergency department with an undetectable level of the blood biomarker high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, and whose ECGs show no sign of restricted blood flow, have a minimal risk of heart attack within 30 days, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. In a study of all patients (14,636 in total) reporting to a Swedish emergency department with chest pain over a two-year period from 2010 to 2012, researchers examined patients' blood levels of high-sensitivity ...

The Atlantic Ocean dances with the sun and volcanoes

2014-03-31
Imagine a ballroom in which two dancers apparently keep in time to their own individual rhythm. The two partners suddenly find themselves moving to the same rhythm and, after a closer look, it is clear to see which one is leading. It was an image like this that researchers at Aarhus University were able to see when they compared studies of solar energy release and volcanic activity during the last 450 years, with reconstructions of ocean temperature fluctuations during the same period. The results actually showed that during the last approximately 250 years – since ...

Researchers reveal a new pathway through the sodium pump

Researchers reveal a new pathway through the sodium pump
2014-03-31
A study in The Journal of General Physiology provides new evidence that the ubiquitous sodium pump is more complex—and more versatile—than we thought. The sodium pump is present in the surface membrane of all animal cells, using energy derived from ATP to transport sodium and potassium ions in opposite directions across the cell boundary. By setting up transmembrane gradients of these two ions, the pump plays a vital role in many important processes, including nerve impulses, heartbeats, and muscular contraction. Now, Rockefeller University researchers Natascia Vedovato ...

Data show benefit of comprehensive lipid testing in determining risk for coronary heart disease

2014-03-31
Washington, D.C., March 31, 2014 ― Data presented from two meta-analyses using the Atherotech Vertical Auto Profile (VAP®) Lipid Panel showed the impact high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and remnant lipoprotein (RLP) cholesterol have on determining a patient's risk for hard coronary heart disease (CHD) endpoints, such as myocardial infarction or coronary death. Each analysis examined men and women without prevalent CHD enrolled in both the Framingham Offspring and Jackson Heart studies over eight years. In both studies, HDL, the "good" cholesterol in the ...

Giving steroids during bypass surgery shows no benefit, some harm

2014-03-31
WASHINGTON (March 31, 2014) — Giving patients steroids at the time of heart surgery does not improve health outcomes and appears to put them at greater risk of having a heart attack in the days following surgery, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. The finding, which stems from the largest randomized trial in cardiac surgery ever conducted, challenges a practice that many surgeons have used for decades. "Based on these results, we suggest that steroids should not be used prophylactically during cardiac ...

Metformin fails to reduce heart failure after heart attack

2014-03-31
Washington (March 31, 2014) — The use of metformin, a common regulator of blood glucose for diabetics, does not help protect against heart failure in non-diabetic patients who have suffered a heart attack, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. The GIPS-III trial is the first double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study conducted to evaluate whether four months of metformin treatment preserved left ventricular function in non-diabetic patients with acute myocardial infarction. Metformin is commonly ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New model of neuronal circuit provides insight on eye movement

Cooking up a breakthrough: Penn engineers refine lipid nanoparticles for better mRNA therapies

CD Laboratory at Graz University of Technology researches new semiconductor materials

Animal characters can boost young children’s psychological development, study suggests

South Korea completes delivery of ITER vacuum vessel sectors

Global research team develops advanced H5N1 detection kit to tackle avian flu

From food crops to cancer clinics: Lessons in extermination resistance

Scientists develop novel high-fidelity quantum computing gate

Novel detection technology alerts health risks from TNT metabolites

New XR simulator improves pediatric nursing education

New copper metal-organic framework nanozymes enable intelligent food detection

The Lancet: Deeply entrenched racial and geographic health disparities in the USA have increased over the last two decades—as life expectancy gap widens to 20 years

2 MILLION mph galaxy smash-up seen in unprecedented detail

Scientists find a region of the mouse gut tightly regulated by the immune system

How school eligibility influences the spread of infectious diseases: Insights for future outbreaks

UM School of Medicine researchers link snoring to behavioral problems in adolescents without declines in cognition

The Parasaurolophus’ pipes: Modeling the dinosaur’s crest to study its sound #ASA187

St. Jude appoints leading scientist to create groundbreaking Center of Excellence for Structural Cell Biology

Hear this! Transforming health care with speech-to-text technology #ASA187

Exploring the impact of offshore wind on whale deaths #ASA187

Mass General Brigham and BIDMC researchers unveil an AI protein engineer capable of making proteins ‘better, faster, stronger’

Metabolic and bariatric surgery safe and effective for patients with severe obesity

Smarter city planning: MSU researchers use brain activity to predict visits to urban areas

Using the world’s fastest exascale computer, ACM Gordon Bell Prize-winning team presents record-breaking algorithm to advance understanding of chemistry and biology

Jeffrey Hubbell joins NYU Tandon to lead new university-wide health engineering initiative & expand the school’s bioengineering focus

Fewer than 7% of global hotspots for whale-ship collisions have protection measures in place

Oldies but goodies: Study shows why elderly animals offer crucial scientific insights

Math-selective US universities reduce gender gap in STEM fields

Researchers identify previously unknown compound in drinking water

Chloronitramide anion – a newly characterized contaminant prevalent in chloramine treated tap water

[Press-News.org] Evolocumab safely drops LDL cholesterol well below statin-only baseline
Results suggest role for 2-drug approach in cholesterol control