The Study
Evolocumab in Patients With Prior Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and No Prior MI: Results From the VESALIUS-CV Trial.
This study gave some people a medicine and others a fake pill, then watched who had heart problems. Because they were randomly assigned, we can guess the medicine probably caused the reduction in heart problems — but we’re not 100% sure because we don’t know if everyone was blinded.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
People who had a stent but never had a heart attack were given a cholesterol-lowering drug or a sugar pill. After almost 5 years, those on the drug had fewer heart attacks and other heart problems.
Where does this study sit?
Systematic Reviews & Meta-analyses
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control
Max 58Cross-Sectional
Max 44Case Reports & Series
Max 30Expert Opinion
Max 568 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — cutting heart attacks in half and reducing deaths by a third is a big benefit for people who already had a stent but no prior heart attack.
- 2The drug lowered LDL cholesterol to 41.5 mg/dL (vs 107.0 on placebo).
- 3It cut heart attacks by half (3% vs 6%), reduced urgent heart procedures by 39%, and lowered heart-related deaths from 3.7% to 2.6%.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Circulation
Year
2026
Authors
B. Bergmark, E. Bohula, N. Marston, Jeong-Gun Park, J. Kuder, S. Murphy, Gaetano M. De Ferrari, Lawrence A. Leiter, Jose C Nicolau, O. Averkov, M. Charng, C. Ebenbichler, A. Erglis, I. Gouni-Berthold, G. Montalescot, S. J. Nicholls, A. Sigurdsson, Peter Sinnaeve, R. Šlapikas, K. Tsioufis, Subodh Verma, M. Viigimaa, Ajay K. Bhatia, Li Xin, E. Walsh, E. Ohman, Robert P. Giugliano, M. Sabatine
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.