Coronary Artery Calcium Might Help Identify Low-Risk Patients Who Would Benefit from Statins

In the placebo-controlled JUPITER trial (JW Gen Med Nov 18 2008), rosuvastatin (Crestor) significantly lowered the incidence of adverse cardiovascular events in healthy patients with normal levels of LDL cholesterol (<130 mg/dL) and elevated levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP; ≥2 mg/L). These results — if applied widely — would result in statin therapy for millions of patients at relatively low cardiovascular risk. But, because absolute event rates were low, most such patients would derive no benefit. To determine whether computed tomography (CT)-identified coronary artery calcium (CAC) might define a subgroup of JUPITER-eligible patients who would be most likely to benefit from statin therapy, investigators identified 950…