Vaskulárna medicína 4/2010

Statins and ezetimibe – current position in the treatment of dyslipidaemias (cardiovascular prevention)

Statins have been used in clinical practice for about 15 years and still represent one of the most important pharmacological group of cardiovascular drugs. Many positive results dealing with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality are known from multiple clinical trials with statins. The most frequent adverse events within statin therapy are myopathy, elevation of liver enzymes and some special pharmacological interactions depending on statin metabolism in liver. Ezetimibe is a quite new drug with the property of blocking the absorption of cholesterol and other sterols at the brush border of the intestine. It is thought the drug affects proteinfacilitating absorption (NPC1L1). In clinical trials co administration of ezetimibe with a statin provided a more pronounced reduction of plasma total and LDL cholesterol concentration.

Keywords: statins, ezetimibe, present role in clinical practice, adverse events.