UPDATE: |NHS urged to prescribe ‘low-cost’ drugs which could prevent thousands of heart attacks News

New research reveals that taking a drug in combination with statins could prevent around 5,000 heart attacks

Thousands of heart attacks could be prevented if the NHS prescribed a “low-cost” drug combination, according to new research.

A study conducted by an international team of scientists suggests that patients should be treated earlier with statins and the cholesterol-lowering drug ezetimibe.

The researchers at Lund University in Sweden and Imperial College London are calling on the NHS to change prescribing guidelines to offer both drugs “as soon as possible” after a heart attack to lower the risk of a second one.

Professor Kausik Ray, from Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, said: “This study shows that we could save lives and reduce further heart attacks by giving patients a combination of two low-cost drugs. But at the moment patients across the world aren’t receiving these drugs together.

“That is causing unnecessary and avoidable heart attacks and deaths – and also places unnecessary costs on healthcare systems. Our study shows the way forward. Care pathways must now change for patients after this type of heart event.”

The study looked at the effects of statins and ezetimibe given at different times after a heart attack – also known as a myocardial infarction. It looked at data from 36,000 patients who had a heart attack between 2015 and 2022.

Patients were given either a combination of statins and ezetimibe within 12 weeks of a heart attack, given statins with ezetimibe added between 13 weeks and 16 months, or got just statins with no ezetimibe at all.

The research found that those who received the drug combination within 12 weeks of a heart attack had a lower risk of a second heart attack or cardiovascular event and death within five years than those who received the add-on treatment later, or not at all.

Professor Ray said: “Ezetimibe is already widely available and prescribed for relatively low cost.

“This add-on therapy could be rolled out for around £350 a year per patient, which is a huge cost saving compared to the lasting impacts of treating heart attacks and the impact they have on patients’ lives.”

Patients are at the greatest risk of suffering a new heart attack in the first year after the initial event.

The scientists calculated that if all patients had received ezetimibe early, 133 heart attacks could be avoided for every 10,000 patients over three years. With 100,000 UK hospital admissions from heart attacks every year, an estimated 5,000 heart attacks could be prevented over a 10-year period, the researchers said.

Researcher Margret Leosdottir, Lund University associate professor and senior cardiology consultant at Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden, welcomed the results, saying that “by giving patients a combination treatment earlier, we could help to prevent many more heart attacks”.

However, Dr Leosdottir said there are reasons why medics are cautious about combination therapy.

She said: “Combination therapy is not applied up-front for two main reasons. General recommendations are not included in today’s guidelines and a precautionary principle is applied to avoid side effects and over-medication.

“However, there are positive effects from applying both medicines as soon after the infarction as possible.

“Not doing this entails an increased risk. In addition, the drug we have examined in the study causes few side effects and is readily available and inexpensive in many countries.”