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Biotech / Medical : IMAT - ultrafast tomography for coronary artery disease -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: westpacific who wrote (2464)	5/11/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: westpacific	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3725

Another research article - a marriage between these two companies would be a match made in heaven. Tie it into a formulary arrangement and sell it to Medicare/Medical and Managed Care and $10 here we come!!! Monday May 11 5:52 PM EDT Drugs help low cholesterol patients, too NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Pravastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug proven effective in slowing atherosclerosis in patients with high blood cholesterol levels, can also help patients with average or even low cholesterol levels reduce their risk of complications of arterial disease, such as heart attack and stroke, according to a study in the May 12th issue of the journal Circulation. "We were able to demonstrate a profound effect on the atherosclerotic disease process," said study lead author Dr. Stephen MacMahon, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. "These results suggest that cholesterol lowering is likely to reduce atherosclerotic progression in most people with coronary heart disease across a broad range of pretreatment cholesterol levels." The research, conducted by Auckland researchers and investigators at the University of Sydney in Australia, was funded by the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, the maker of pravastatin. High blood cholesterol levels increase the risk of plaque deposits on the walls of arteries, gradually causing them to thicken and restrict blood flow. Restricted arterial blood is a major risk factor for heart attack or stroke. Pravastatin was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1991 for use in reducing levels of circulating cholesterol (and resultant arterial thickening) among heart disease patients with above-average cholesterol levels. But MacMahon and his colleagues point out that "in Western populations, most deaths from coronary heart disease occur among individuals whose cholesterol is average or below average." Their study sought to discover if pravastatin could help those types of patients as well. The researchers selected a group of 522 patients with histories of prior heart attack or angina and average or below-average blood cholesterol levels. They then took ultrasound images of each subjects' carotid artery, a major neck artery that supplies blood to the brain. Half of the patients were then enrolled on low-fat diets and pravastatin for a period of 4 years, while the other half were placed on low-fat diets and placebo (inactive) medications. Participants underwent periodic blood tests, while ultrasound imaging was used to re-examine their carotid artery thickness at 2-year intervals. The result? "Treatment with pravastatin reduced total cholesterol levels by 19%, LDL ("bad") cholesterol by 27%, apolipoprotein B (a protein linked to heart attack risk) levels by 19%, and total triglyceride (a fat) levels by 13%," according to the study authors. The drug also raised levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol by 5%, while raising levels of one fat linked to higher heart attack risk, apolipoprotein A1, by 4%. Furthermore, the researchers report that average "carotid wall thickness had increased by 0.048 millimeters in the placebo group and declined by 0.014 millimeters in the pravastatin-treated group," over the 4-year period of the study. "We showed that cholesterol lowering with pravastatin appeared to prevent the progression of atherosclerosis in the carotid artery," MacMahon said. Pravastatin is sold under the name Pravachol in the US. In the UK, it is known as Lipostat or Lipidal. SOURCE: Circulation (1998;97:1784-1790)