Lipitor 80 Mg Reduces Heart Attacks And Strokes In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes And Chronic Kidney Disease

"As the rates of diabetes in the U.S. have risen, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cases of chronic kidney disease," said Dr. James Shepherd, clinical academic consultant, department of pathological biochemistry, University of Glasgow Medical School and a member of the TNT steering committee. "This trend is alarming, since patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease are much more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than patients with diabetes alone, increasing the urgency to treat. The study's findings support existing guidelines that recommend aggressively lowering LDL cholesterol using statin therapy, such as Lipitor 80 mg, to reduce the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke in these high-risk patients."

In patients with heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but without chronic kidney disease, Lipitor 80 mg reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events by 10 percent compared to Lipitor 10 mg, which did not reach significance.

The TNT study was an investigator-led trial coordinated by an independent steering committee and funded by Pfizer. The study enrolled 10,001 men and women with coronary heart disease aged 35 years to 75 years in 14 countries and followed them for an average of five years.

The primary endpoint of the TNT study was the occurrence of a first major cardiovascular event, defined as death from heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks, resuscitated cardiac arrest, or fatal or non-fatal strokes.

This post-hoc subanalysis studied the effect of Lipitor 80 mg on the incidence of major cardiovascular events compared with Lipitor 10 mg in patients with heart disease and type 2 diabetes, with chronic kidney disease (n=546) and without chronic kidney disease (n=885). Patients with chronic kidney disease were defined as having a baseline glomerular filtration rate below 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 using a standard measure of kidney function. Lipitor 80 mg is not a starting dose.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, heart disease and stroke account for about 65 percent of deaths in people with type 2 diabetes in the U.S. Adults with type 2 diabetes have heart disease death rates that are approximately two to four times higher than that of adults without diabetes.

Diabetes is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease in the U.S. and accounts for about 38 percent of Americans being treated for kidney failure. Patients with chronic kidney disease do not effectively filter toxins from the blood. When chronic kidney disease progresses to kidney failure, either dialysis or a kidney transplant is needed.

According to the National Kidney Foundation guidelines, the outlook for those with both diabetes and chronic kidney disease is far worse than for patients with either condition alone, as the combination is a powerful predictor of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke.

Source: Diabetes In Control: The results were published in the August issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings