The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the “multi-pill” effectively prevented secondary adverse cardiovascular events in people who had previously had a heart attack, reducing cardiovascular mortality by 33 percent in this patient population.
“The polypill, which is a very simple strategy combining three main treatments for this type of patient, has proven to be worthwhile because improved adherence means that these patients receive better treatment and therefore have a lower risk of recurrent cardiovascular events,” the researcher said. . Jose Maria Castellano from the Fundacion de Investigacion HM Hospitales.
For the study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Spain, the team looked at 2,499 patients in seven European countries who had a history of type 1 myocardial infarction in the past six months and were either at least 75 years old or older. age 65 with at least one risk factor, such as diabetes or mild or moderate renal impairment.
The average age of the participants was 76, and 31 percent were women.
The study population included 77.9 percent with hypertension, 57.4 percent with diabetes, and 51.3 percent with a history of smoking.
The researchers analyzed the incidence of four major cardiovascular events: death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, and the need for emergency coronary revascularization (the restoration of blood flow through a blocked coronary artery).
The study followed patients for an average of three years and produced convincing results: patients taking the CNIC multipills had a 24 percent lower risk of these four events than patients taking the three separate drugs.
The findings showed a relative reduction of 33%, from 71 patients in the standard treatment group to just 48 in the multi-pill group.
