So they volunteered for an experimental cholesterol-lowering treatment using gene editing that was unlike anything tried in patients before.
The result, reported Sunday by the company Verve Therapeutics of Boston at a meeting of the American Heart Association, showed that the treatment appeared to reduce cholesterol levels markedly in patients and that it appeared to be safe.
The trial involved only 10 patients, with an average age of 54. Each had a genetic abnormality, familial hypercholesterolemia, that affects around one million people in the United States. But the findings could also point the way for millions of other patients around the world who are contending with heart disease, which remains a leading cause of death. In the United States alone, more than 800,000 people have heart attacks each year.
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