WASHINGTON – Don’t give the cognitive effects of evolocumab a second thought, results from a preplanned substudy of the landmark FOURIER study that assessed the impact of this PCSK9 inhibitor on memory or other measures of cognition in a random subgroup of 1,973 patients enrolled in the main study suggest.
Based on these results “I wouldn’t be concerned about adverse cognitive effects” in patients treated with evolocumab (Repatha) or, for the time being, any other PCSK9 inhibitor, said Robert P. Giugliano, MD, in a video interview at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology”
Concerns about the cognitive effects of the drugs in this class of lipid-lowering drugs have lingered following suggestions of a possible problem that arose during earlier, much smaller studies of these agents as well as similar concerns that arose about statins that have been perpetuated through misleading posts on the Internet.
The battery of memory and cognition assessments used in EBBINGHAUS, the FOURIER substudy, should lay concerns about brain effects of evolocumab to rest, at least within the context of the median 26 months of treatment that patients in FOURIER received, said Dr. Giugliano, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and lead investigator of the EBBINGHAUS substudy. Further analysis also showed that, even among patients who achieved LDL cholesterol levels of less than 25 mg/dL, treatment with evolocumab appeared to cause no deterioration of the measured mental functions.
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