New Risk Factor For Cardiovascular Disease Discovered

A team of international researchers have discovered that having high levels of particular protein puts patients at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The clinical study was stopped early because the results were so conclusive.

Researches have demonstrated that high levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease. This risk decreases by up to 44% if the patients are treated with statin medications.

Dr. Jacques Genest, of the Research Institute of the MUHC and McGill's Faculty of Medicine worked with Dr. Paul Ridker of the Harvard University Faculty of Medicine.

According to Dr. GEnest, "The risk of cardiovascular disease due to increased hs-CPR levels has been greatly underestimated until now. Our results that that this is an extremely important indicator that doctors will have to consider in the future." With this new knowledge, doctors may be able to identify cardiovascular disease earlier, because they now have a new indicator to test for.

"We hope that this study will prompt a review of current clinical practices, especially in terms of screening and prevention in adults," he added. "However, we still need to do more research to establish specific standards." Even though there is not enough information to make a diagnosis off of the test results, doctor's and other medical personnel could still use the test to determine possible causes.

Even though more tests are still needed, the original study included 17,802 patients from 27 different countries. All had normal levels of cholesterol (LDL-c) and high levels of hs-CRP, and according to current standards, were not considered "at risk" for cardiovascular events, and were therefore not receiving any treatment. The patients were given a daily dose of the statin drug rosuvastin. The final results showed a 44% decrease in the risk for cardiovascular disease and a 21% decrease in mortality.

"These results definitely surpassed our predictions," said Dr. Genest. "We had to stop the study before its scheduled completion, as the benefit of the treatment for the selected patients was so great that we needed to present our findings to the medical community as soon as possible."

Since statins have a cholesterol-lowering effect, they are currently used to prevent cardiovascular disease in patients who are at-risk due to high LDL-c levels. But cardiovascular disease is also caused by vascular inflammation, which is marked by levels of hs-CRP. This study shows that statins indeed act on both cholesterol and inflammation, an effect that has long been suspected but not proven.

Maggie Shaughnessy

http://www.zampbioworld.org/bionews/index.php/2008/11/10/10523