A study by Montreal researchers could change how cardiovascular patients are treated.

Lowering the heart rate of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) can significantly lessen their risk of heart attack, according to results of a study, announced at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich.

Patients with a heart rate of more than 70 beats per minute are at a higher risk of having a heart attack. Lowering the heart rate in patients with CAD reduces the heart's need for oxygen.

Researchers found that those with rates above 70 bpm increased their risk of...

  • cardiovascular death by 34 per cent
  • hospitalization for heart attack by 46 per cent
  • coronary revascularization by 38 per cent.

Results showed that for every increase of five bpm...

  • cardiovascular death increased by eight per cent
  • admission to hospital for heart failure by 16 per cent
  • admission to hospital for heart attack by seven per cent
  • coronary revascularization by eight percent.

The Montreal Heart Institute led the Canadian portion of the international study, which involved nearly 11,000 patients in 33 countries on four continents.

Researchers followed 10,917 patients with heart disease to find out whether ivabradine, a medication that lowers heart-rate, would help prevent events such as heart attacks.

All patients were already on cardiovascular therapy, such as beta blockers, but ivabradine reduced the patients' risk of hospitalization for heart attacks by 36 per cent.

Using the drug helped those patients with a heart rate of more than 70 beats per minute (bpm).

"What is most interesting about the results is that by lowering heart rate sufficiently in these patients we can indeed reduce the incidence of cardiovascular events over and above what we can achieve with the best standard of care we have available right now," Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Canadian lead investigator said.

Ivabradine is not yet approved or available in Canada.

CAD causes less blood and oxygen to flow to the heart, by hardening and shrinking the coronary arteries. Partially and fully blocked arteries can lead to angina, heart attack and death. More Canadians, one every seven minutes, die from cardiovascular disease than any other disease.