Vytorin not linked to cancer in other trials: doctor

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Vytorin cholesterol fighter sold by Merck & Co and Schering-Plough has not been linked to cancer or cancer deaths in two large ongoing studies of the medicine, an epidemiologist said on Monday during a medical meeting in London.

"There is no overall credible evidence of an increase in cancer" from the two big studies, Sir Richard Peto, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, said at a meeting where results of an unrelated smaller Vytorin trial suggested a possible cancer risk with Vytorin.

Peto said the two far-larger ongoing studies where cancer has not been associated with Vytorin are IMPROVE-IT, designed to assess overall cardiovascular benefits and risks of the medicine, and SHARP, designed to assess possible benefits of the drug to patients with chronic kidney disease.

"We should not be diverted by fears of cancer" with Vytorin, Peto said, based upon trends seen in the two larger studies involving about 20,000 patients.

By contrast, in the 1,873-patient trial described on Monday, called SEAS, a higher number of patients with thickened aortic valves receiving Vytorin developed cancer or died of cancer than those receiving placebos.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson, editing by Maureen Bavdek)