The most extensive medical research trial carried out in the Republic has shown that a cholesterol-lowering medicine can reduce the risk of dying from heart disease by 25 per cent in people aged over 70.
Prof Michael Murphy and Dr Brendan Buckley, of the department of therapeutics at University College Cork, announced the trial results yesterday at simultaneous press conferences in Cork and at the American Heart Association's congress in Chicago.
Of 24,000 people screened as part of the trial in three European countries, more than 10,000 came from Munster and south Leinster. Patients were also recruited from Scotland and the Netherlands.
The Prosper (Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk) trial has confirmed for the first time that men and women between 70 and 82 benefit from a drug in the statin class of cholesterol-lowering medication. Up to now, doctors only had evidence of its effectiveness in younger people.
In Chicago, Prof Murphy said: "Prosper is good news for our senior citizens. The results tell us for the first time that we should not discriminate between older and middle-aged people when we select patients for therapy to prevent heart attack. Older people currently represent the largest group of under-treated individuals in our community."
The participants were followed up for an average of 3.2 years. In addition to their regular treatments,half received the drug pravastatin - marketed as Lipostat - and the other half were given a placebo.
Facilitated by the Irish College of General Practitioners, the work was carried out by 236 GPs in 160 surgeries in the Republic between 1998 and 2002.
Dr Buckley said that the idea for the research came from the desire to reflect a typical older person presenting to a GP with either a previous cardiac event or a known risk factor. "We need to be able to answer the question: would these patients benefit from the use of statins?"
Although the study showed no difference in the incidence of strokes between the two groups, those taking pravastatin suffered fewer "mini-strokes" - temporary events which are strong indicators that a full-blown stroke will follow. "The indication that we were probably preventing mini-strokes would make us cautiously optimistic that major strokes would also be prevented by longer-term treatment with pravastatin," he added.
The study also found that pravastatin lowered "bad" cholesterol concentrations by a third. Taking a 40mg tablet a day also reduced the likelihood of a non-fatal heart attack by 20 per cent. The researchers also examined the effect of pravastatin on cognitive function, finding that there was no difference in the incidence of dementia between the treated and untreated groups.
The results of the Prosper trial will be published in this Saturday's Lancet. They are also available at www.thelancet.com