A British study finds that heart disease patients who take a combination of three drugs are more likely to survive than those taking a single drug.
The report in the British Medical Journal is the first survey to examine survival rates for coronary disease patients taking different drug combinations.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham tracked 13,000 patients diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease between 1996 and 2003.
The study found an 83 percent reduction in deaths among patients who took a combination of statins (cholesterol lowering drugs), aspirin and beta-blockers (a type of blood pressure lowering drug). Adding an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor, another blood-pressure-reduction drug, provided no additional benefit.
Taking beta-blockers alone reduced deaths by 19 percent, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors alone by 20 percent.
Effect of combinations of drugs on all cause mortality in patients with ischaemic heart disease: nested case-control analysis
Julia Hippisley-Cox and Carol Coupland
BMJ 2005 330: 1059-1063.
Drug combinations associated with the greatest reduction in all cause mortality were statins, aspirin, and blockers (83% reduction, 95% confidence interval 77% to 88%); statins, aspirin, blockers, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (75% reduction, 65% to 82%); and statins, aspirin, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (71% reduction, 59% to 79%). Treatments associated with the smallest reduction in all cause mortality were blockers alone (19% reduction, 37% reduction to 4% increase), angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors alone (20% reduction, 1% to 35%), and combined statins and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (31% reduction, 57% reduction to 12% increase).
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