Study: Lipitor increases risk of bleeding stroke

This is the case of weighing boons and banes. Researchers say Pfizer Inc's cholesterol fighter Lipitor may raise the small risk of the less common type of stroke, involving bleeding in the brain, in people who previously have had a stroke.

Known generically as atorvastatin, Lipitor is a multi-billion dollar seller for Pfizer. It is in a class of drugs known as statins.

Writing in the journal Neurology, Dr. Larry Goldstein of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina and colleagues said they did a more detailed analysis of results published last year showing that Lipitor reduced the overall risk of a second stroke.

They tracked 4,731 patients who had suffered a stroke or a mini-stroke, known as a transient ischemic attack, within the previous six months. Half were treated with Lipitor and the rest got a placebo. All were followed for an average of about 4-1/2 years.

Just over 2 percent of the patients who were taking Lipitor experienced a hemorrhagic stroke -- a type of stroke in which a blood vessel breaks and there is bleeding in or around the brain -- compared to 1.4 percent of those who got a placebo.

That represented about a 60 percent increase in risk, but the overall risk remained low, Goldstein's team said.

According to the researchers, people treated with the drug had a 21 percent reduced risk for ischemic stroke, a more common variety of stroke involving a block in the blood supply to the brain. They also found that other factors that raised the risk of brain hemorrhage included a previous hemorrhagic stroke; high blood pressure; and being a man.

"There is overall benefit for patients who have had a prior stroke or a mini-stroke. Lipitor reduces your risk of getting your next stroke," says Halit Bander, the head of Pfizer's Lipitor medical team.

The risk for hemorrhagic stroke in patients taking this drug has not been found in those who have never had a previous stroke, the researchers said.

"Patients who take statins for coronary heart disease or coronary heart risk who have had no stroke have no increased risk for brain hemorrhage," Goldstein said in a telephone interview.

Pfizer funded the study. Goldstein has served as a paid consultant to Pfizer.