Important findings from the IMPROVE-IT trial were presented at the American Heart Association meeting yesterday. They demonstrate for the first time that the cholesterol lowering drug ezetimibe (brand name Zetia) lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke when added to a statin drug in high risk patients (those who have sustained a heart attack or had unstable angina) over a statin drug plus placebo.
That study showed
The primary endpoint of CV death/MI/UA/coronary revascularization beyond 30 days/stroke was significantly lower in the ezetimibe/simvastatin arm compared with the simvastatin arm over the duration of follow-up (32.7% vs. 34.7%, hazard ratio [HR] 0.94, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.89-0.99; p = 0.016).
Prior to this study, Zetia had been prescribed to millions of patients since 2002 garnering Merck, its maker, profits of 30 billion dollars despite there being no evidence that it reduced heart attack or stroke.
Dr. Melissa Walton-Shirley wrote an excellent article on the status of Zetia at the beginning of 2014, summarizing thusly:
Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that starting in 2014, let’s not put compounds on the market for human ingestion without knowing if they help or hurt. Let’s make it unacceptable for a company to make tens of billion dollars from the sale of a compound without knowing if it lowers mortality or improves quality of life
I have previously bashed Zetia on this site and I only prescribe it in very rare cases. These new data may change my approach.
Before embracing Zetia, though, I want to see the full paper in published form and examine the data in detail. Many questions need to be answered. For example, the addition of the drug to simvastatin lowered heart attack and stroke compared to simvastatin alone but there was no difference in overall death rates or cardiovascular death rates. That raises a red flag.
In addition, this study does not support the use of Zetia in patients who have not had heart attacks or near heart attacks (primary prevention).
Science moves slowly but inexorably toward the truth if done properly. It’s important that public policy and drug prescribing not get in front of the science as it did with this drug.