Combo tx linked to significant reductions in LDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides versus rosuvastatin
MONDAY, Aug. 29, 2016 (HealthDay News) — For patients with primary hypercholesterolemia, fixed-dose combination of ezetimibe plus rosuvastatin is more effective than rosuvastatin alone, according to a study published online Aug. 10 in Cardiovascular Therapeutics.
Kyung-Jin Kim, from Seoul National University in South Korea, and colleagues compared the effects of fixed-dose combinations of ezetimibe plus rosuvastatin to rosuvastatin alone in patients with primary hypercholesterolemia in an eight-week randomized trial. A total of 407 patients with primary hypercholesterolemia who required lipid-lowering treatment were randomly allocated to fixed-dose combinations with ezetimibe 10 mg daily plus rosuvastatin (5, 10, or 20 mg) or to rosuvastatin alone (5, 10, or 20 mg).
The researchers observed a significant reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, total cholesterol, and triglyceride levels for fixed-dose combinations of ezetimibe plus rosuvastatin versus rosuvastatin alone. Ezetimibe plus rosuvastatin provided reductions of 56 to 63 percent in LDL cholesterol, 37 to 43 percent in total cholesterol, and 19 to 24 percent in triglycerides, depending on the dose of rosuvastatin. The effect of combination treatment was stronger in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) or metabolic syndrome (MetS) versus those without DM or MetS; there were no differences in the effect of rosuvastatin alone for DM versus non-DM or MetS versus non-MetS patients.
“Fixed-dose combinations of ezetimibe and rosuvastatin provided significantly superior efficacy to rosuvastatin alone in lowering LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, and triglyceride levels,” the authors write.
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