Early Statin Therapy Helps Heart Attack Survivors

Treating patients with a statin drug early on may help heartattack survivors. The researchers based their findings on datafrom 1639 patients brought to the emergency room with symptomsof a heart attack who had not been receiving prior statintherapy. The data revealed that 1284 patients were treated withstatins within 24 hours of admission, while the remaining 355received statins at a later time. The results of the study, reportedrecently in the American Journal of Cardiology, found thatpatients in the early-statin group had a lower occurrence ofdeath, stroke, repeat heart attack, and heart failure during theirhospital stay, compared with patients who received statin therapyat a later time.