CONTEXT: Pragmatic Clinical Trial | Large scale studies like this, whilst technically an RCT, look and feel like RWR and with a very tangible goal in mind | Anything to demonstrate an impact on Alzheimer’s has to be applauded. So whether you call this an RCT, PCT, low-interventional or a decentralised study, we await the findings with extreme interest.
IMPACT: Medium
READ TIME: 2 mins
Quality Level Mean [1 – 10, 10 highest]: 8
1. ““This is the largest study exclusively of people age 75 and older comparing statins to a placebo,” explained Karen Alexander, M.D., a geriatric cardiologist and professor at Duke University Medical Center, and the lead researcher for PREVENTABLE.”
2. “PREVENTABLE aims to find out if older adults on statins can live longer and healthier lives without developing new dementia and the persistent disability that often accompanies memory loss, Dr. Alexander said.”
3. “Almost all statin studies have involved participants between age 40 and 75, so there is little scientific support for prescribing statins to older adults who don’t have high cholesterol, heart disease or a dementia diagnosis but who might benefit from taking them.”
4. ““As physicians, we have to take the data we have in younger people and make a guess as to whether a statin is the appropriate treatment or therapy to give to our older healthy patients,” said Raj Shah, M.D., a geriatrician and associate professor of family medicine with the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University in Chicago, and a co-investigator with PREVENTABLE.”
5. “A Practical Study in the Age of COVID. The PREVENTABLE study (Pragmatic EValuation of EvENTs And Benefits of Lipid-lowering in OldEr adults) is currently recruiting 20,000 volunteers age 75 and older who will be randomly assigned to take either atorvastatin (brand name Lipitor) or a placebo for up to five years, with periodic check-ins to test the participants’ memory, thinking, and physical abilities, and to see whether they experience heart attacks or strokes.”