[Lowering of the plasma lipid concentration with lovastatin. A clinical study in patients with primary...

A study of 27 patients (18 males and 9 females; median age 57 [35-70] years) with hypercholesterolaemia examined the lipid-reducing effect, clinical reliability and tolerance of lovastatin, an HMG-CoA-reductase inhibitor, given in a single evening dose. After a four-week period on placebo and a lipid-reducing diet the patients received 20 mg lovastatin for four weeks. If, at the end of this period, total cholesterol levels were still above 200 mg/dl, the dose was increased to 40 mg, after a further four weeks to 80 mg. After a three-month treatment period total cholesterol concentration in lovastatin-treated patients was 28% lower than in the placebo group (289.4 +/- 42.2 vs 208.0 +/- 39.9 mg/dl; P less than 0.0001). LDL-cholesterol concentration had fallen by 40% (215.1 +/- 44.4 vs 130.1 +/- 24.7 mg/dl; P less than 0.0001), while plasma triglyceride concentrations had fallen by 15% (166.3 +/- 71.8 vs 141.8 +/- 69.8 mg/dl; P less than 0.01). At the same time, HDL-cholesterol levels had risen by 12% (42.9 +/- 12.4 vs 47.9 +/- 18.2 mg/dl; P less than 0.01). These results confirm the marked lipid-reducing effect of lovastatin.