1.Efficacy and safety of evolocumab in elderly patients with high-risk cardiovascular diseases
Xinlian QI ; Xiao ZOU ; Haijun WANG ; Chunlin LI ; Sha ZHANG ; Xiansai MENG ; Yang LI ; Quanjin SI
Chinese Journal of Geriatric Heart Brain and Vessel Diseases 2024;26(2):137-141
Objective To explore the efficacy and safety of evolocumab in elderly patients with high-risk cardiovascular diseases.Methods A total of 153 patients with poor lipid control after conventional statin therapy who were hospitalized in the cardiologic departments in the First,Sec-ond,Sixth and Eighth Medical Centers of Chinese PLA General Hospital from November 2019 to November 2022 were included,and divided into non-elderly group(<60 years old,46 cases),eld-erly group(60-74 years old,66 case)and very elderly group(≥75 years old,41 cases).They were all given evolocumab treatment according to guidelines.Another 50 over-75-year-old patients with high-risk cardiovascular diseases and poor lipid control who were hospitalized in the above cardiologic departments during the same period were treated with a statin drug combined with ezetimibe,and served as conventional treatment group(control group).The baseline clinical data and the blood indicators at 4th and 12th week after drug administration,and the occurrence of ad-verse drug reactions and major adverse cardiovascular events(MACE)within 12 weeks were com-pared among the groups.Results The levels of LDL-C and TC were significantly decreased in the three evolocumab treatment groups at 4 and 12 weeks after medication when compared with the baseline values(P<0.05,P<0.01),but there were no obvious differences in the 2 levels among the 3 groups at 12 weeks(P>0.05).At the time point,no statistical difference was observed in the incidence of adverse events in the three groups(2.2%vs 3.0%vs 2.4%,P>0.05).The levels of LDL-C and TC were decreased significantly in the very elderly group and the conventional treatment group at the 12th week when compared with the baseline levels(P<0.05,P<0.01),and the LDL-C level at the week was notably lower in the very elderly group than the convention-al treatment group(1.36±0.44 mmol/L vs 1.87±0.56 mmol/L,P<0.01).But no difference was seen in the incidence of MACE between the 2 groups(12.2%vs 16.0%,P>0.05),either in sur-vival rate between them(P=0.576).Conclusion For patients of all ages,evolocumab has good short-term efficacy in lipid control,and for those over 75 years old,the drug also shows good effi-cacy and sound safety.