Cholesterol drugs also good for low-risk patients

DRUGS to lower cholesterol should be prescribed far more widely because they significantly cut the rate of heart attacks and strokes even in low-risk patients, researchers say.

In an analysis of 27 studies, University of Sydney researchers found the risk of cardiovascular deaths was reduced by 15 per cent in low-risk patients who took the drugs, called statins, compared with those who did not.

The patients were considered to have a less than a 10 per cent risk of having a heart attack or stroke within five years, and are not recommended for statin treatment under current guidelines. But the researchers, from the National Health and Medical Research Council clinical trials centre, said the reduction in cardiovascular deaths achieved in the low-risk group was similar to that for high-risk patients.

The findings prompted them to call for a review of clinical guidelines so that low-risk patients were prescribed statins where lifestyle modifications such as diet and exercise failed to lower their cholesterol.

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Study co-author Professor Anthony Keech said statins could benefit about a third of men aged over 50 and women over 60 who were at low risk of cardiovascular disease.

Current guidelines recommend diet and exercise changes for patients in this group. They state that statins should be considered in patients with a 10 to 15 per cent risk of a heart attack or stroke, in cases where lifestyle change has been unsuccessful and there are persistent risk factors such as hypertension or a family history.

Writing in The Medical Journal of Australia, the researchers said there was now ''considerable evidence that statin therapy reduces cardiovascular events'' in low-risk patients.

''While there is no substitute for lifestyle modification, the capacity for statin pharmacotherapy to assist in the treatment of individuals at lower risk has now been shown,'' they said.

''This new evidence must be urgently considered, with appropriate economic analyses, for incorporation into clinical and PBS [Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme] guidelines.''

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Cholesterol drugs also good for low-risk patients