Are there shared venous and arterial pathways?
Although venous and arterial thrombosis can often occur together and share some risk factors, the JUPITER researchers note that there is still controversy regarding the “nature and extent of their shared pathways” and whether treatments for one condition can have consistent benefits in the other. The existing data are mixed in terms of benefits with the use of statins in VTE. The JUPITER trial included 17 802 healthy men and women assigned to rosuvastatin 20 mg or placebo and was designed to assess whether statin therapy should be given to apparently healthy individuals with normal LDL cholesterols but elevated C-reactive-protein (CRP) levels (>2.0 mg/L). The occurrence of VTE was a protocol-specific secondary end point of the trial, and patients were followed for the first occurrence of pulmonary embolism or deep-vein thrombosis (DVT). During a median follow-up of 1.9 years-the JUPITER trial was stopped early based on evidence of a reduction in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality a
