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More Uncertainty Over Zetia
Zetia is ezetimibe, a component of Vytorin. In the ENHANCE trial, ezetimibe had no effect on atherosclerosis, leading a panel at the American College of Carbiology conference in March 2008 to recommend that it be used only as a last resort. The SEAS trial found a troubling increase in cancer in patients who received ezetimibe, leading to uncertainty as to ezetimibe's safety.
A new study, published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, added nothing to the knowledge about ezetimibe's safety and efficacy. This study was an analysis of data from the SANDS trial.
This new study is a post-hoc analysis, a term which refers to testing data for patterns that you had not planned to look for when the study was designed. Sometimes called "data dredging," this technique has been compared to shooting an arrow into a target and then drawing a bull's-eye around it.
In this case, the researchers compared patients who achieved low cholesterol levels with a combination of a statin and ezetimibe with patients who achieved similar levels with a statin alone, and found no difference in the effect on atherosclerosis. However, only 69 patients received ezetimibe and the two groups were not determined through randomization.
Although SANDS was funded by the National Institutes of Health, several of the researchers have close ties to Merck and Schering-Plough, the manufacturers of ezetimibe, having received research support from and served on the scientific advisory boards and/or speaker's bureaus of these companies.
Source: GoozNews
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