Around 500 Irish patients involved in an international study on blood pressure treatment are to be recalled after a monitoring committee recommended that it be stopped early.
The data-monitoring committee intervened in recent weeks when one particular form of treatment was identified as being more successful.
Under guidelines for clinical trials - which involve comparing patients on a variety of regimens - it would be unethical to continue a study if one form of treatment was clearly known to be more successful than the others.
The study, which involved 20,000 patients in Ireland, the UK and Scandinavia, was examining various drug treatments for high blood pressure.
Prof Eoin O'Brien, consultant cardiologist at Beaumont Hospital, said yesterday all 500 Irish patients involved are to be recalled.
The patients, who were treated at Beaumont, have to be recalled before May.
The evaluation of the pilot programme, known as RHASP, found it had achieved its objectives and had the potential to halve the occurrence of heart disease and stroke.
Prof O'Brien said that on the basis of the pilot project results, it could be estimated that if 20,000 patients in the eastern region were managed with the RHASP programme over a 10-year period, up to 1,500 heart attacks and 750 strokes could be avoided.
The full details of the study will be disclosed next month at a meeting of the American Cardiology Association in Florida.
Two years ago a sub-set of the international study, known as ASCOT, involving drugs for reducing cholesterol and limiting heart attacks and strokes, was also stopped early due to the high success rate detected.
Prof O'Brien yesterday gave details of the recall of patients at the launch of an evaluation of a pilot project which used information technology to link general practitioners and hospital doctors in the treatment of patients with heart disease.
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