Heart Assn. urges statins for kids

DALLAS, March 23 (UPI) -- New guidelines from the American Heart Association suggest prescribing cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to children.

Brian McCrindle, professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto and staff cardiologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, who was the lead author of the new guidelines, said studies now show drugs such as Zocor and Lipitor are safe for children and appropriately lower cholesterol.

"In addition to highlighting newer evidence, this new statement addresses a greater need for recognizing young patients with multiple risk factors and how those factors could influence the decision to treat with medications or not," said McCrindle.

The new statement, published in the current issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, will specifically affect children and adolescents with high-risk lipid abnormalities, such as those with familial hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, or a family history of cardiovascular disease or early heart attacks and stroke.

The American Heart Association statement recommends statins as first-line treatment for children who meet criteria for starting lipid-lowering drug therapy.

The previous guidelines made several assumptions that newer research has challenged. For example, the National Cholesterol Education Program panel estimated that 25 percent of children and adolescents would be targeted for cholesterol screening.

However, based on a number of population-based studies, from 36 percent to 46 percent of children and adolescents would be targeted, McCrindle said.