Statin drugs reduce stroke risk

BOSTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) Patients who take Lipitor, a drug used to treat heart patients, are less likely to suffer a second stroke, according to a study paid for by the drug's maker, Pfizer Inc.

The research, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, found that the drug, one of a class of cholesterol fighting drugs known as statins, cut the overall risk of another stroke by about 16 per cent over five years.

Stroke is the third largest cause of death in the United States, ranking behind diseases of the heart and cancer. It is a disorder in which the arteries to the brain become blocked or rupture, resulting in death of the brain tissue.

David Kent, a physician at Tufts-New England Medical Center wrote in an editorial in the journal that the study should prompt doctors to routinely prescribe statin drugs to all people who are at risk of suffering a stroke instead of just prescribing it to people at risk of suffering a heart attack.

Researchers found that 218 of the 2,365 patients who took Lipitor developed an ischemic stroke, where blood flow to the brain is blocked. At the same time, 274 patients of the 2,366 patients who took the placebo developed the stroke.

But the study also produced some bad news for the drug.

Lipitor appeared to increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, the less common form caused by bleeding in the brain, by 67 per cent.

There were 55 hemorrhagic strokes in the Lipitor group versus 33 in the placebo group.

The researchers, led by Pierre Amarenco of Denis Diderot University in Paris, characterized that increase as small.

Drug therapy also did not cut the rate of death among stroke patients.

The researchers calculated that 46 patients would need to be treated for five years to prevent one stroke. The study did not include people known to have heart disease.

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