Vytorin prescriptions drop as studies link the cholesterol drug with higher numbers of cancer deaths. It appears that a three-study analysis intended to reassure patients of the drug's safety has in fact found that while Vytorin does not increase the chances of developing cancer, it appears to increase the morbidity.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, led authors, which represent U.S. and European cardiologists, to recommend that the drug is not prescribed to most heart patients anymore until the issue is clarified. However, those who do not respond to other means of lowering cholesterol should stay on the drug.

Douglas Weaver, the president of the American College of Cardiology, reminded doctors that Vytorin is not a first-line treatment as some use it for their patients, and statins should be used first in treating high cholesterol levels.

While lower LDL-cholesterol levels are linked by some studies to a slightly higher incidence of cancer, it seems to be no link that statins themselves pose a cancer risk. For example, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology published a new overlook of 15 statin studies including more than 90,000 patients, which found no higher risk of cancer in people taking statins compared to placebo.

However, the FDA has ordered an investigation which will take around nine months. Statins are a class of drug that reduce the amount of cholesterol produced in the body, and protect people from heart disease.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the U.S. spent $1.5 billion in 2006 on Vytorin, a cholesterol drug that actually does not work better than an older drug, which is sold for a fifth of Vytorin’s price. The two year ENHANCE Study eventually failed to provide evidence that the ezetimibe/simvastatin combination found in Vytorin was better than simvastatin alone. Simvastatin has already reached generic status and is thus much cheaper.

Since ezetimibe was combined with statins in July 2004, a large advertising campaign started, which led to an increased number of prescriptions of Vytorin in the US. The cholesterol pill produced by Schering-Plough Corp. and Merck & Co. was prescribed 20 million times last year.