Deepak Bhatt, MD: Icosapent Ethyl and REDUCE-IT Data from ESC Congress 2020

For the first time in recent years, an analysis of REDUCE-IT was not included as part of the late-breaking sessions at a major cardiology conference, but that does not mean the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2020 came and went without major data related to icosapent ethyl (Vascepa) from the landmark trial.

Among the more than 4000 pieces of data presented at ESC Congress 2020 were a trio of studies assessing data from REDUCE-IT in an attempt to provide clinicians a more comprehensive overview of the effects of icosapent ethyl. A pair of these studies, one examining outcomes by baseline statin type and another assessing total ischemic events based on baseline LDL-C levels, were presented by the principal investigator of the original REDUCE-IT trial, Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH.

In the following interview, Bhatt, who is also the executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discusses the results of both these analyses and an additional examining data from interim analyses conducted during the study.

These studies, “REDUCE-IT: total ischemic events reduced across the full range of baseline LDL cholesterol and other key subgroups,” “REDUCE-IT: accumulation of data across prespecified interim analyses to final results,” and “REDUCE-IT: outcomes by baseline statin type,” were all presented at ESC Congress 2020.