Comparison of Efficacy and Safety of Atorvastatin and Simvastatin
April 21 2005 Atorvastatin and Simvastatin are the two most commonly prescribed statins for treatment of Dyslipidemia with or without coronary disease While statins remain the initial drug of choice here clinicians may want to consider a statin that has the most positive effect on all components of atherogenic dyslipidemia Given below is the comparison of Atorvastatin and Simvastatin based on a few clinical trials
Change in lowdensity lipoprotein LDL cholesterol
This is a primary parameter in measuring efficacy of the drugs Atorvastatin showed significantly greater reductions from baseline in LDL cholesterol than Simvastatin in a 6week prospective randomized openlabel blinded endpoint clinical trial of 1732 dyslipidemic patients with and without coronary heart disease Atorvastatin 10 mg showed a reduction of 371 compared to Simvastatin 20 mg at 354 p = 00097 On the other hand Atorvastatin 80 mg was at 534 versus Simvastatin 80 mg at 467 Another set of clinical trials was conducted on 2341patients treated with both drugs and Rovastin Results showed that rosuvastatin 10 to 80mg reduced LDL cholesterol by a mean of 82 more than Atorvastatin 10 to 80 mg and 12 to 18 more than Simvastatin 10 to 80 mg
Change in cholesterol
Atorvastatin 10 and 80 mg also provided significantly greater reductions in total cholesterol triglycerides verylowdensity lipoprotein cholesterol and apolipoprotein B than Simvastatin 20 and 80 mg respectively all p less than 005 All treatment groups had a significantly decreased LDL cholesterolHDL cholesterol ratio from baseline all p less than 00001 In both groups a higher proportion of Atorvastatintreated patients reached their NCEP LDL cholesterol goal compared with Simvastatin
Potential drug interactions
Atorvastatin and Simvastatin inhibit the CYP 3A4 isoenzyme which involves many drug interactions Atorvastatin interacts with clopidogrel Plavix which requires the CYP 3A4 enzyme to be activated As Atorvastatin inhibits this enzyme it also inhibits the antiplatelet aggregating action of clopidogrel
Despite clear guidelines set by the American College of Cardiology Dyslipidemia continues to be undertreated It is estimated that despite being a wellresearched area only onethird of eligible patients receive therapy outside the hospital and many of these treated patients fail to achieve their target lowdensity lipoprotein levels This is in spite of the fact that dyslipidemia is one of the most researched and easily modified risk factors for arthrosclerosis and subsequent hypertension coronary heart disease CHD and cerebral vascular accident We at wwwdyslipidemiaorg aim to spread the awareness on this condition and help patients benefit from the various treatments
Comparison of Efficacy and Safety of Atorvastatin and Simvastatin
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