March 19, 2019 — New numbers suggest that a purified fish oil derivative, a prescription drug called Vascepa, is more effective at preventing cardiovascular events than previously thought.
The drug lowered the rate of these events in high-risk patients — including strokes, heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular causes — by 30% overall versus placebo, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
This is better than previously thought because because the study authors took into account not just first cardiovascular events as before, but also second, third, fourth events, and so on. Earlier results were announced by Irish drugmaker Amarin Pharma in September and then in a study released November in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“By looking only at first events, we underestimate the true underlying treatment benefit offered,” study author Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt said in a statement Monday.
“With this drug, we are not only preventing that first heart attack but potentially the second stroke and maybe that third fatal event,” said Bhatt, executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
According to these latest data on cardiovascular episodes, Vascepa slashed first events by a quarter, second and third events by more than 30%, and later events by almost a half. The researchers estimated that by treating a thousand patients for five years, they could prevent 76 coronary revascularizations, 42 heart attacks, 14 strokes, 16 hospitalizations due to unstable angina and 12 deaths related to cardiovascular causes.