Adnkronos Rome, March 18 (Adnkronos Salute) – "In patients who already have a significant level of cardiovascular risk, because they present other risk factors such as hypertension, cigarette smoking and high LDL cholesterol, the presence of high levels of lipoprotein (a) exponentially increases cardiovascular risk. For this reason, the identification of this lipoprotein is fundamental".
This was stated by Claudio Bilato, director of Cardiology at the hospitals of the West of Vicenza and professor at the specialization school in Cardiovascular Diseases at the University of Padua, at the media tutorial 'Not just LDL cholesterol: discovering Lipoprotein (a)', which took place this morning at the Novartis headquarters in Milan.
Discovered in 1963 by the Norwegian doctor Karl Berg, lipoprotein (a) or Lp(a) has since been the subject of numerous epidemiological observations, especially in Scandinavian countries, "from which a deep, linear correlation has emerged between the level of circulating lipoprotein (a) and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases - underlines Bilato - Lipoprotein (a) is an LDL, i.e. a low-density lipoprotein, like the one that carries the so-called bad cholesterol in our body. Unlike the latter, however, Lp(a) is associated with another protein, apoprotein (a), and this causes it to become very proinflammatory, proatherosclerotic and prothrombotic, thus assuming an important pathogenic connotation. In terms of atherosclerosis, lipoprotein (a) has a capacity approximately six times higher than LDL".
Until now "we did not have the pharmacological tools that were truly effective in lowering the levels of lipoprotein (a) - adds the expert - and in the best of cases we were able to lower them by about 30%. Currently, 2 types of molecules are being studied that silence the gene responsible for the production of this lipoprotein (a). One of these is an antisense oligonucleotide that has the capacity to reduce the circulating levels of lipoprotein (a) by 80-85%. This molecule is the subject of a very important, multicenter, multinational and long-term study that seeks to evaluate whether the lowering of lipoprotein (a) levels also corresponds to a significant reduction in cardiovascular events".