Colchicine before PCI: New research tracks the long-term impact on heart health

Could colchicine have made a bigger impact on long-term outcomes if patients received more than a single dose? It is possible, researchers noted, but more research would be required to be certain.

“Colchicine may need to be continued daily after PCI to show longer-term benefit as observed in previous studies,” wrote first author Binita Shah, MD, MS, an interventional cardiologist with the cardiac catheterization laboratory at NYU Langone Health, and colleagues. “However, given that the benefit in the inflammatory response to vascular injury in the Colchicine-PCI trial was observed 24 hours after PCI, it remains uncertain whether earlier colchicine administration before PCI may confer greater benefit.”

Key context: Colchicine’s historic FDA approval

In June 2023, colchicine became the first anti-inflammatory medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating cardiovascular disease. Cardiologists, especially those in the field of preventive cardiology, were quick to voice their support of the FDA’s decision.  

“Approval by the FDA of the first drug to target cardiovascular inflammation is an important step forward for the care of our patients,” Paul Ridker, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a statement at the time. “To treat coronary disease effectively, cardiologists must aggressively reduce inflammation and cholesterol.

Read the full study from Shah et al. here.