Bayer has announced the start of a two-year clinical trial to test whether early treatment with a statin can reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD). The principal investigator is Professor William Keane (University of Minnesota) who told a press briefing at the conference that, although lipid abnormalities were common in patients with chronic renal failure and ESRD, only around 8 per cent of haemodialysis patients in the United States currently received lipid lowering therapy. "To date, no statin outcome trials have been conducted in this patient population," he said. Around 50 per cent of deaths in patients with ESRD were from cardiovascular disease. "It is the primary cause of death and we are doing nothing to decrease the cardiovascular disease burden in these patients."
The new trial is called CHORUS (cerivastatin in heart outcomes in renal disease: understanding survival). According to Bayer, the benefit of statins on ESRD outcomes might not only result from their lipid lowering properties. The company says that animal studies have shown that therapy can reduce proteinuria and glomerulosclerosis. The effect of the drugs on inflammatory processes that might contribute to cardiovascular disease will also be monitored. The trial will be carried out in Canada and the US. It will involve at least 1,000 patients new to haemodialysis who have "slightly elevated" lipid levels.