The Straits Times, March 30, 2009

ORLANDO: The cholesterol-fighting drug rosuvastatin, marketed as Crestor to help fight high cholesterol, can help cut the risk of blood clots dramatically, according to research released on Sunday.

The study dubbed Jupiter - Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin - found that taking the British lab AstraZeneca's Crestor reduced the clot risk in the veins by as much as 40 per cent and more.

It did not however consider other popular statins such as Lipitor or Zocor.

Those brands, and generics, are battling for billion-dollar global market shares.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a very common disorder with an incidence that increases with age. Deep vein thrombosis, which can cause pain in the legs, is an early form of VTE, while pulmonary embolism is a frequently fatal, advanced form of the condition caused by a clot that travels to the lungs.

'VTE is a serious, sometimes fatal, event that is costly and inconvenient to treat,' said Dr Robert Glynn, a biostatistician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who presented the results at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology here.

'When patients and their doctors discuss initiation of statin therapy, prevention of VTE is an important additional consideration beyond proven benefits in the prevention of heart attack and stroke,' he said.

While 'our findings require confirmation, ... they have the potential to broaden our perspective on the treatment targets for statin therapy, including consideration of VTE, in addition to conditions caused by arterial thrombosis such as heart attack and stroke (among) estimated benefits associated with statin use,' Dr Glynn argued. -- AFP