Study Shows Who Benefits Most from Statins (IMAGE)
Caption
For each of the risk categories, Stitziel and his colleagues calculated the number of patients that doctors would need to treat with statins to prevent one heart attack over a 10-year period. This 'number needed to treat' statistic also showed the greater benefit of statins in patients in the high genetic-risk category. As an example, using data from the JUPITER clinical trial (Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin), they stratified participants into groups at low, intermediate and high risk of having a heart attack. In the high-risk group, researchers calculated 25 people would need to take a statin for 10 years to prevent one heart attack. Such a strategy could help doctors decide which patients are at high risk and therefore most likely to benefit from statin therapy.
Credit
Eric Young, Washington University in St. Louis.
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Credit to Washington University in St. Louis.
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