Approval expands use to treating patients with heart disease.
Pfizer’s anticholesterol drug, Lipitor, widely prescribed to reduce cardiovascular events in patients without heart disease, can now be used to treat at risk patients with established heart disease, according to the company.
The FDA added five new indications to Lipitor. “These new indications are important since many patients who have heart disease remain at risk for another cardiovascular event, and now these indications broaden the means to reduce their risk,” comments Dr. John C. LaRosa, president and professor of medicine at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and Pfizer consultant.
Lipitor is now approved to reduce the risk of nonfatal heart attacks, fatal and nonfatal strokes, certain types of heart surgery, hospitalization for heart failure, and chest pain in patients with heart disease.
