Koo,

Thanks for linking to that article.

While the VISTA-16 trial failed, the sub-study of this trial yielded very important observations regarding hsCRP and MACE risk. Together with the CANTOS trial that treated patients with the anti-IL-1B antibody canakinumab, there is strong evidence that inflammation is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and MACE risk.

"The VISTA-16 substudy

VISTA-16 lasted long enough that hsCRP levels were obtained at baseline and at weeks 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 after randomization in 4,257 patients prior to study termination. This provided enough data for the researchers to determine whether longitudinal increases in hsCRP were independently associated with a greater risk of MACE, all-cause death and cardiovascular death.

The CANTOS trial of canakinumab elegantly proved that inflammation is causal for atherosclerotic cardiovascular events,” observes Dr. Puri. “Whether changes in inflammation levels over the short-to-medium term following a heart attack are actually meaningful, however, was not clear, since no large-scale clinical data have been available.”

VISTA-16 provided such data. The researchers found that each standard-deviation increment in longitudinal hsCRP concentration was associated with a 15% increased risk of MACE, a 25% increased risk of all-cause death and a 26% increased risk of cardiovascular death."

Apabetalone has been shown to have potent anti-inflammatory effects, decrease MACE in high hsCRP patients (see also here), and to decrease hsCRP (see also here). Resverlogix has previously highlighted these anti-inflammatory effects (see this news release) and has published several publications and posters exemplifying these anti-inflammatory effects. 

BearDownAZ