Besides reducing the incidence of heart attacks and stroke, AstraZeneca’s cholesterol drug Crestor appears to have another important benefit: reducing rate of blood clots in the veins (venous thromboembolism), according to data presented at the American College of Cardiology scientific meeting in Orlando, Florida.
 
“It is another benefit of an extraordinary class of drug,” said Dr. Paul Ridker the director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease at Brigham, lead author of the study.
 
Venous thromboembolism can be fatal for a patient once the clot reaches the lungs. Up to 600,000 Americans get venous clots annually and at least 100,000 die from them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
 
The risk of venous thromboembolism increase with age, and people who are obese or have certain genetic abnormalities or have been inactive because of surgery or injury are more prone to develop them.
 
The findings come from an analysis of a study sponsored by AstraZeneca and called Jupiter (Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin).
 
The first goal of the study was to assess the benefits of a statin in preventing heart attacks and stroke. The study, involving 17,802 people — men 50 and older and women 60 and older — in 26 countries who took either Crestor or a placebo, showed that the statin lowered the risk of stroke, angioplasty, bypass surgery and death.
 
The second goal of the study was the benefit of Crestor in preventing blood clots. The results marked the first time a statin demonstrated an ability to prevent blood clots in a major clinical trial.
 
“This is the first time a statin has been shown to reduce the risk of VTE in a randomized, prospective study. This result is in addition to the effect on cardiovascular events already demonstrated by CRESTOR in the primary analysis of JUPITER,” said Alex Gold, MD, Executive Director of Clinical Development, AstraZeneca US.
 
To be more specific, the study found that during an average follow-up of nearly two years, 34 participants who were taking Crestor developed venous thromboembolism compared to 60 who were taking a placebo – a small absolute benefit but a relative risk reduction of 43 percent.
 
Ridker said the finding is another reason to prescribe statins, which have already demonstrated their ability to reduce heart attacks and strokes. “We're not arguing that you should go on a statin to lower your risk of venous thrombosis,” Ridker said.
 
Of course Crestor had its side effects in the study’s participants. Among them were headache (3.7 percent), myalgia (3.1 percent), abdominal pain (2.6 percent), asthenia (2.5 percent), and nausea (2.2 percent).