Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in every 4 deaths is caused by heart disease, coming out to about 610,000 deaths a year. Additionally, 735,000 Americans or more experience a heart attack every year. Heart disease and heart-related issues have become so prevalent that the American Heart Association has declared cardiovascular disease an epidemic.
Traditional treatment for heart disease involves the prescription of statins – drugs that act to reduce the levels of fats, triglycerides, and cholesterol in the blood – in conjunction with lifestyle changes such as a healthier diet or incorporating exercise in to one’s daily schedule.
However, experts estimate that high cholesterol or triglyceride levels are not a factor in half of the heart attacks that occur. In such cases, prescribing statins is actually dangerous because a patient’s fat levels can fall too low. Hence, there is a need to find new treatments for heart disease and heart attacks.
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To find new treatments to decrease the risk of heart disease, researchers explored the effects of the drug Canakinumab (commercial name Ilaris) in the Canakinumab Anti-Inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study (CANTOS). Canakinumab is an anti-inflammatory drug originally used to help treat cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS). CAPS are rare, auto-inflammatory (when the body’s immune system attacks its own cells) diseases resulting from a mutation in the NLRP3 gene. CANTOS was a worldwide study that had 17,482 patients across 6 years.
The CANTOS trial found that those who received Canakinumab had a much lower incidence of heart disease, heart attack, and other heart-related events. In fact, the drug led to a 15% decrease in deaths from heart-related issues such as heart disease, stroke, and heart attacks. Perhaps of even more importance is Canakinumab’s distinguishing feature compared to traditional treatments: the patient’s lipid levels were relatively unaffected. The CANTOS trial also found other health benefits of those in the experimental group compared to those in the placebo group. Canakinumab was found to have strong anti-carcinogenic effects, specifically against lung cancer tumors. The experimental group, who received canakinumab, had significantly lower deaths related to cancer compared to the placebo group.
However, Canakinumab is not without side effects. Those who received Canakinumab were found to have a higher incidence of infection and deaths as a result of those infections. Also, those patients were found to have lower numbers of platelets compared to those in the placebo group.
Driven by a need for a new alternative treatment from the traditional statins, scientists in the CANTOS trial explored the effectiveness of the drug Canakinumab in treating heart disease and heart attacks. The drug was proven to be rather effective, with a multitude of additional health benefits, but it also had some dangerous side effects. Overall, Canakinumab is a promising new drug to combat America’s growing heart disease epidemic.
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