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ODYSSEY Outcomes trial evaluating the effects of a PCSK9 inhibitor, alirocumab, on major cardiovascular events in patients with an acute coronary syndrome to be presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting on March 10.

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

For PCSK9 inhibitors, the effect on major adverse cardiovascular events has always fallen short of expectations based on cholesterol lowering.

But cardiovascular risk reduction is complicated. There is more to the puzzle than cholesterol. Some drugs lower both cholesterol and prevent cardiovascular events, but some people think that the two effects are actually not that closely related.

Milton Packer MD

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/71435

In a previous trial (FOURIER), another PCSK9 inhibitor had only a modest benefit on its primary endpoint, and it did not reduce cardiovascular death, although the magnitude of cholesterol lowering was striking.

In another trial (SPIRE), a third PCSK9 inhibitor, the clinical trial was terminated prematurely by Pfizer because of reduction of the effect of the drug (a humanized but not fully humanized antibody) due to development of neutralizing antibodies in some of the patients. Actually, in patients treated for more than a year who did not develop neutralizing antibodies, a beneficial effect was seen.

The ODYSSEY Outcomes trial is evaluating the effects of a PCSK9 inhibitor,alirocumab, on major cardiovascular events in patients with an acute coronary syndrome within the prior year. The drug lowers serum cholesterol dramatically, and some are hopeful that that effect will translate into an important reduction in the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. If you believe that cholesterol reduction inevitably leads to the prevention of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction and stroke, then you would have high expectations for the ODYSSEY trial.

ODYSSEY. The trial uses a somewhat more aggressive treatment strategy and has a longer follow-up period than its predecessors. So maybe the benefit will be large. Maybe the drug will even reduce cardiovascular death or all-cause mortality.

In order to enrich the population for cardiovascular events, the trial enrolled patients with an acute coronary syndrome within the prior year. These patients are at high risk of having a recurrence. The problem is that risk is not necessarily related to changes in cholesterol, especially the events occurring early in the trial. And in this type of trial, the analysis tends to give extra weight to early events.

Trials like ODYSSEY are often designed to stop early if the results are unbelievably impressive. The ODYSSEY trial wasn’t stopped early.

the patients entering the ODYSSEY trial are starting out with a serum LDL <100 mg/dL or even <90 mg/dL. Is cholesterol really playing an important role at that level, especially when compared with noncholesterol factors?

SOURCE

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/71435