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(Circulation. 2007;116:e8.)
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.

Correspondence

Letter by Rosenberg and Uretsky Regarding Article, "Risks Associated With Statin Therapy: A Systematic Overview of Randomized Clinical Trials"

Lauren Rosenberg, MD; Seth Uretsky, MD

St Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY

To the Editor:

In regard to the article by Kashani et al,¹ the authors conclude that "...statin therapy is associated with small excess risk of transminase elevations, but not of myalgias, creatine kinase elevations, rhabdomyolysis...". We think this conclusion is misleading. On closer inspection of the data, atorvastatin has 3 times the occurrence of myalgias compared with placebo (P<0.04). According to the authors’ data, these adverse events seem to be unique to atorvastin and were not observed with other statins. Admittedly the absolute risk is small; however, when one considers that in the US alone 5 million patients are presently treated with atorvastatin, this drug could still account for myalgias in >250 000 patients—not quite an insignificant number!

	Acknowledgments

 
Disclosures

None.

	References

Top References

 

1. Kashani A, Phillips CO, Foody JM, Wang Y, Mangalmurti S, Ko DT, Krumholz HM. Risks associated with statin therapy: a systematic overview of randomized clinical trials. Circulation. 2006; 114: 2788–2797.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
   

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Rosenberg, L. Articles by Uretsky, S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Rosenberg, L. Articles by Uretsky, S. Related Collections Lipid and lipoprotein metabolism Primary prevention Secondary prevention