Testing A New Experimental Drug To Raise Good Cholesterol Level

Testing A New Experimental Drug To Raise Good Cholesterol Level.
An conjectural poison that raises HDL, or "good," cholesterol seems to have passed an sign hurdle by proving safe in preliminary trials. Although the trial was primarily designed to overlook at safety, researchers scheduled to present the finding Wednesday at the American Heart Association's annual assignation in Chicago also report that anacetrapib raised HDL cholesterol by 138 percent and slap in the face LDL, HDL's evil twin, almost in half. "We saw very encouraging reductions in clinical events," said Dr Christopher Cannon, assume command author of the study, which also appears in the Nov 18, 2010 exit of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A big study to seal the results would take four to five years to complete so the drug is still years away from market who is a cardiologist with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Other experts are intrigued by the findings, but note that the check out is still in very ahead stages. "There are a lot of people in the prevention/lipid field that are simultaneously excited and leery," said Dr Howard Weintraub, clinical concert-master of the Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Added Dr John C LaRosa, president of the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in New York City: "It's very prodromic but it's material because the final drug out of the barrel of this type was not a success. This looks match a better drug, but it's not definitive by any means. Don't take this to the bank".

LaRosa was referring to torcetrapib, which, get off on anacetrapib, belongs to the class of drugs known as cholesterol ester take protein (CETP) inhibitors. A large trial on torcetrapib was killed after investigators found an increased jeopardy of death and other cardiovascular outcomes. "I would be more excited about anacetrapib if I hadn't seen what happened to its cousin torcetrapib. Torcetrapib raised HDL astoundingly but that was completely neutralized by the development in cardiovascular events".

In the new trial, anacetrapib actually showed a tendency toward fewer cardiovascular problems and fewer angioplasty or avoid procedures, although the study only lasted 18 months. It also didn't issue in the blood pressure increases that helped doom torcetrapib.

To assess the protection of the trial, investigators randomly chose 1623 adults with coronary heart disease who were taking cholesterol-lowering statins to take home either anacetrapib or a placebo for 18 months. At the end of six months, LDL cholesterol was incision 81 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) of blood to 45 mg/dl, a reduction of about 40 percent. In the placebo group, LDL levels only declined from 82 mg/dl to 77 mg/dl.

Meanwhile, HDL levels increased from 41 mg/dl of blood to 101 mg/dl in the care arm, versus a humble break from 40 mg/dl to 46 mg/dl in the placebo group. "We have 94 percent belief that this drug doesn't have the harmful create that torcetrapib had, but we didn't prove a reduction in events," said Brigham and Women's Cannon. "That will be the dominate of a larger study".

Such a study is in the works. Dr Neil Coplan, chief of clinical cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, stressed that this was a "safety trial, not a dry run which is saying in any way that people should take these medications nor are the drugs approved". Still "the conditional demonstrated safety and it demonstrated a tremendous effect on altering the lipid statistics in a good direction. It's very promising but, as the authors note themselves, it's a first step".

Experts are still divided as to whether raising HDL levels will in actuality result in any meaningful improvements in clinical outcomes. "Currently, we're not convinced that manipulation of HDL matters, though certainly it's promising," said Weintraub, who added that results should be at rather soon from other trials exploring the issue. "The deed that LDL was also reduced also makes it promising. We've never been able to satisfactorily demonstrate that raising HDL in point of fact changes risk" found here. The only drug currently available to raise HDL is nyacin.