New hope powerful drug may reverse heart disease

Millions of heart disease sufferers have been given new hope as doctors reveal that the condition might be reversible.

Previous research has suggested heart disease can be slowed but not reversed. Now scientists have found that intensive treatment with a powerful cholesterol-lowering drug may reduce the fatty deposits in the arteries.

But the drug, Crestor, manufactured by Astra Zeneca and launched in 2003, could cause a muscle-wasting disease.

Heart disease is caused by the build-up of fatty deposits, called atheroma, which narrows the arteries and increase the risk of a heart attack. Previous treatment has focused on reducing the atheroma by cutting cholesterol.

Results of an international study released yesterday show that two years of treatment with Crestor, also known as rosuvastatin, cut cholesterol by more than half and reduced the thickness of the atheroma by 6.8 per cent. Almost four out of five patients showed some reduction in the level of atheroma.

Neal Uren, consultant cardiologist at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, said reducing atheroma was the Holy Grail in the fight to combat heart disease.

Dr Sarah Jarvis, a London GP and member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the news was "dramatically exciting" and its importance "cannot be underestimated".

But the British Heart Foundation warned that the study was small, with just 349 patients, and the drug was the most powerful cholesterol-lowering medication on the market.

The research was conducted in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. The results were presented yesterday at the American College of Cardiology annual conference in Atlanta. The full paper will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association next month.

- INDEPENDENT