Anti-inflammatory drugs may lower risk of heart attack and cancer - study finds

A new study has found that an anti-inflammatory drug could help reduce the risk of heart attack and cancer deaths and possibly lung cancer, in people who have already had one heart attack and are at high risk for another.

Several researchers outside the study have lauded the findings saying it represent a major milestone — proof of a biologic concept that opens the door to new ways of treating and preventing cardiovascular disease in people who are still at risk despite standard therapies.

More than 10,000 patients took part in a trial using the anti-inflammatory drug canakinumab, the results of which were presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Barcelona, Spain.

The patients, all of whom had previously had a heart attack but had not been diagnosed with cancer, were treated with the drug once every three months and monitored for up to four years.

The Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes study, or CANTOS, showed a 15 per cent reduction in the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and cancer deaths cut in half, the hospital where one of the lead authors is based said.
 

The study represents a milestone in a long journey, said Dr Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, adding that the findings "usher in a new era of therapeutics.

For the first time, we've been able to definitively show that lowering inflammation independent of cholesterol reduces cardiovascular risk, he said.

This has far-reaching implications. It tells us that by leveraging an entirely new way to treat patients - targeting inflammation - we may be able to significantly improve outcomes for certain very high-risk populations.

The hospital said the reductions in risk were "above and beyond" those seen in patients who only took statins.

Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, said the results provided a platform on which to carry out further trials and research.

The study was funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals.