More than 2 percent of patients undergoing non-cardiac  vascular surgery — surgery to arteries and veins — die from  heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. Lescol, a so-called statin drug, appears to be effective in  reducing this risk by cutting inflammation and stabilizing  plaques in coronary arteries that might otherwise rupture, Don  Poldermans of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam said. Results of a 500-patient study presented by Poldermans at  the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology showed  only 10.9 percent of vascular surgery patients taking Lescol  suffered myocardial ischemia — reduced blood supply to the  heart muscle — against 18.9 percent of those on placebo. Lescol is less potent than some other statin drugs but  patients in the study were given the highest dose of the  medicine as an extended release formulation, which lasts around  four days. Lescol, known generically as fluvastatin, is one of  Novartis’s older products. Sales in 2007 totaled $665 million,  down 8 percent on a year earlier.
Novartis's Lescol drug protects heart after surgery.