Submitted by Administrator on Mon, 02/07/2018 - 10:57
Dr Stephen Burgess, Dr Brian Ference, Dr Adam Butterworth, and collaborators have studied the role of lipoprotein A (LPA) levels and heart disease risk.
The new study collected genetic data and blood LPA concentration from tens of thousands of patients with coronary heart disease and from healthy controls.
The main outcome was that the effect of LPA on the risk of coronary heart disease is proportional to the absolute change in LPA, and that to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events by the same amount as lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) by 1 mmol/L using a statin, LPA level in blood must be reduced by 100 mg/dL.
Most people have blood LPA levels that are much lower than this (usually around 10-20 mg/dL), and the new study suggests that the only people likely to benefit from LPA lowering techniques are patients with very elevated LPA levels.
This study helps to inform future clinical treatment recommendations for lowering LPA, inform the design of future trials evaluating stronger LPA lowering therapies that are currently in development, and motivate world-wide screening programmes to identify people with extremely high LPA levels (>200 mg /dl) who would benefit most from LPA-lowering treatments.
The study was published in JAMA Cardiology.
