A new statin: A new standard

In a 2-stage, placebo-controlled, Phase 2 dose-ranging trial evaluating the new statin rosuvastatin in men and postmenopausal women with hypercholeste rolemia, the agent was found to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in a dose-related manner. With each doubling of the rosuvast atin dose (1, 2.5, 5, 70, 20, 40, and 80 mg/day), there was an additional 4 .5% reduction in LDL-C. Reductions in LDL-C were statistically significant across all doses and ranged from 35% to 65%. The latter percent reduction s urpasses the maximal reductions reported for all other statins when used fo r monotherapy and suggests that rosuvastatin might enable more patients wit h hypercholesterolemia to achieve target LDL-C levels. Across all doses, th e new statin also had favorable effects on of:her lipid parameters and was well tolerated, with the incidence of adverse events similar to placebo.