Robert P. Giugliano, MD, MSc, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, discussed the findings of the EBBINGHAUS study on evolocumab’s effect on cognition, which he presented at the American College of Cardiology 66th Scientific Session. He also explained how that study was related to the highly-anticipated FOURIER trial.
Robert P. Giugliano, MD, MSc, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, discussed the findings of the EBBINGHAUS study on evolocumab’s effect on cognition, which he presented at the American College of Cardiology 66th Scientific Session. He also explained how that study was related to the highly-anticipated FOURIER trial.
Transcript (slightly modified)
How is EBBINGHAUS related to the FOURIER trial?
The FOURIER trial was the large cardiovascular outcomes trial that enrolled over 27,000 patients. In order to get into this cognitive study called EBBINGHAUS, you had to be enrolled and participating in the FOURIER trial. So in a sense the EBBINGHAUS is a subset of patients who were enrolled in FOURIER; like I said, a little under 2000 of the 27,000-plus enrolled in FOURIER.
Are there further studies planned to investigate the use of evolocumab in general clinical practice?
Here, the trial was rather short, so FOURIER overall lasted 26 months, the average follow-up in EBBINGHAUS was about 20 months. We prescribe drugs to lower cholesterol for decades, if not a patient’s lifetime. Amgen, the sponsor of the trial, has committed to an open-label extension study, and a subgroup of patients are going to continue to do cognitive testing periodically over a period of several years.
Why are the EBBINGHAUS and FOURIER studies significant?
If you take a step back and say, what have we learned from these studies together, EBBINGHAUS and FOURIER, I mean these are really ground-breaking in that we are now driving LDL down to extremely low levels that are unprecedented, and we’re finding that it’s efficacious, it reduces the risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke, and safe. Specifically from EBBINGHAUS, the cognitive functions of the patients were unchanged.
Award-Winning Poster Presentations From AMCP 2024
April 23rd 2024At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2024 annual meeting, multiple poster presentations concerned with health equity, data collection, glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, and more were acknowledged for their originality, relevance, clarity, bias, and quality.
Read More
The Importance of Examining and Preventing Atrial Fibrillation
August 29th 2023At this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention, Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, delivered the Honorary Fellow Award Lecture, “The Imperative to Focus on the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation,” as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology award.
Listen
Standard Criteria for Loss of Ambulation Needed in DMD
April 19th 2024A recent study suggests the differences between ambulation definitions for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) can impact the identification of ambulant vs nonambulant individuals, and standard criteria across settings are needed.
Read More
Promoting Equity in Public Health: Policy, Investment, and Community Engagement Solutions
June 28th 2022On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on the core takeaways of his keynote session at AHIP 2022 on public health policy and other solutions to promote equitable health and well-being.
Listen
An Overview of Health Care and Pharmaceutical Trends, 2023-2024
April 19th 2024Douglas M. Long, BA, MBA, was featured as the keynote speaker on the closing day of The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 2024 annual meeting, with a session dedicated to surveying the health care and pharmaceutical trends of the last year.
Read More