Statins may improve survival in lung patients

LONDON (Reuters) - Cholesterol-lowering drugs may improve the survival of patients suffering from a lung disease that afflicts 44 million people worldwide, Norwegian scientists said on Wednesday.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes bronchitis and emphysema, is an incurable illnesses caused mainly by smoking. It begins with a cough that leads to shortness of breath and difficulty breathing as it destroys the lungs.

Researchers from Akershus University Hospital in Lorenskog in Norway have found that statins can reduce deaths in COPD patients whose condition has worsened.

"The present study shows that the use of statins is associated with improved survival after chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation," said Vidar Soyseth in a report in the European Respiratory Journal.

The death rate was 43 percent lower in statin patients than in COPD sufferers not taking the cholesterol-lowering treatment. It seemed to improve even more if the patients were also taking inhaled corticosteroids, drugs to relieve COPD symptoms.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates COPD will become the third-biggest killer illness worldwide by 2020. It afflicts people over 40 who have been smoking for many years.

It contributes to other illnesses such as pneumonia, heart disease and stroke. There is no cure for COPD but treatments can relieve the symptoms and therapies to slow its progression are being tested.

Soyseth and his team tested the impact of statins on COPD patients because recent studies have shown the drugs reduced deaths among patients with heart disease.

"So we deduced that many COPD sufferers in fact had a sub-clinical form of ischaemic heart disease and statin treatment could improve their survival," he said.

They monitored the impact of statins on 845 COPD patients whose symptoms had worsened over a three-year period after they had been released from hospital.

Millions of patients are prescribed statins to reduce levels of LDL, or so-called bad cholesterol. LDL deposits fat in the arteries while HDL, or good cholesterol, carries it away.

The drugs have also been shown to help prevent diabetes sufferers and people at high risk of heart disease from having a heart attack or stroke.

Pfizer's Lipitor, Merck's Zocor and AstraZeneca's Crestor are among the leading statins. The drugs lower cholesterol by inhibiting an enzyme that controls how much is produced in the body.