Coronary Calcium May Narrow Field for Statin

AHA: Coronary Calcium May Narrow Field for Statin Therapy

By Ed Susman, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today Published: November 18, 2010 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner Action Points   Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Note that this study suggests that it may be possible to use coronary artery calcium score to identify the subset of asymptomatic patients that would receive the most benefit from statin therapy. CHICAGO -- Physicians may be able to refine who will benefit most from taking statins by having patients undergo coronary artery calcium scans. By adding the calcium score to the treatment work-up model, researchers here at the annual scientific sessions of the American Heart Association said that they could reduce the number of patients needed to treat to prevent one event to 19 people -- lower even than the 25 to 50 number needed to treat described by the JUPITER investigators. In the JUPITER trial, patients with less than 130 mg/dL of low density lipoprotein cholesterol and higher levels of C-reactive protein were significantly able to reduce cardiac events when they were treated with rosuvastatin (Crestor). But the subjects in JUPITER didn't undergo coronary artery calcium scans./.../