Report on Heart Attack Survival

Tuesday, January 23rd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

CHICAGO (AP) â€” Giving cholesterol-lowering drugs to heart attack patients in the hospital can substantially improve their chances of survival, Swedish researchers suggest in another study underscoring the benefits of the quick use of statins.

In the study of 19,599 patients, those given statins at or before their release from the hospital were about 25 percent less likely to die within a year than those who did not receive the drugs.

Statins, sold in the United States under such brand names as Pravachol and Lipitor, are a class of drugs that reduce levels of cholesterol, which can cause fatty plaque buildups along artery walls. Heart attacks occur when pieces of plaque break off and clog an artery. Statins may also reduce inflammation that occurs when plaque forms.

In the past, doctors have waited a month or two to prescribe statins for heart attack patients because the attacks can cause inaccurate cholesterol readings.

The Swedish researchers said their findings suggest that statins can also help when used soon after an attack, when the plaque might still be unstable.

``It still has good effects in patients that survive the first three months and then are put on statins, but it looks like we can prevent a lot of patients from dying during the first three months'' as well, said Dr. Ulf Stenestrand, a cardiologist at University Hospital of Linkoping, Sweden.

The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association and come two months after an American Heart Association meeting where a study was released suggesting that victims of mild heart attacks are more likely to survive if given statins early.

That study found that immediately giving heart attack patients Lipitor â€” regardless of their cholesterol levels â€” could reduce the risk of death, new heart attacks and other bad outcomes by 16 percent.

The Swedish researchers looked at data on 5,528 heart attack patients younger than 80 who were given quick statin treatment and 14,071 patients who were not given statins. The severity of attacks was not noted.

Within a year of leaving the hospital, 219 statin users died, compared with 1,307 nonusers. Factoring in things that also affect death rates, such as age, smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure, the researchers found that statin use reduced the risk of dying within a year by 25 percent.

The data did not include the patients' cholesterol levels, but the researchers noted that Swedish guidelines recommend statins for heart patients with mildly elevated LDL cholesterol â€” the ``bad'' kind.

The Swedish project is ``a very good and important study that will have an effect on moving towards earlier use of statin treatment after heart attacks,'' said Dr. Sidney Smith, chief science officer for the American Heart Association and a University of North Carolina cardiologist.

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On the Net:

http://jama.ama-assn.org

American Heart Association: http://www.americanheart.org