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Earlier this year, ezetimibe (Zetia; Vytorin in combination with simvastatin) made the news when it failed to reduce mean carotid intima–media thickness in the ENHANCE trial (JW Apr 1 2008). Now comes the SEAS trial, which raises the possibility of an association between ezetimibe and cancer.
Speculating that lipid-lowering therapy might delay progression of aortic stenosis, the SEAS researchers randomized 1873 patients with mild-to-moderate asymptomatic aortic stenosis to receive a simvastatin/ezetimibe combination or placebo. During median follow-up of 4.4 years, active drug therapy prevented neither clinical nor echocardiographic progression of aortic stenosis. However, new cancers were diagnosed in 11.1% of simvastatin/ezetimibe recipien…