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Non daily dosing of rosuvastatin

Authoring team

Nondaily dosing regimens of statins

  • intermittent low-dose statins is an option for lipid lowering therapy in statin intolerant patients

  • atorvastatin and rosuvastatin, are longer acting
    • they are therefore useful for nondaily dosing regimens

  • alternate day, three times a week, twice a week, and once a week regimens have been tried and results are positive

  • evidence from a small double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 35 patients receiving atorvastatin, 10 mg daily, versus alternate day regimen showed LDL cholesterol reductions of 38% and 35%, respectively, without any myopathy

  • use in statin intolerant patients
    • in a small study of 51 statin intolerant patients, who received rosuvastatin, 5 or 10 mg on alternate days, 80% of patients had no recurrence of myalgia
    • once weekly rosuvastatin, 5-20 mg, resulted in a mean LDL cholesterol reduction of 29% among 8 intolerant patients without any incidence of myopathy

  • non-daily rosuvastatin and atorvastatin seem tolerable - the use of non daily statin dosing may help lower LDL cholesterol levels in patients with statin intolerance

  • checking effectiveness of non-daily statin dosing

Reference:

  1. Sikka P et al. Statin intolerance: now a solved problem. J Postgrad Med. 2011 Oct-Dec;57(4):321-8.
  2. Matalka MS et al Is alternate daily dose of atorvastatin effective in treating patients with hyperlipidemia? The Alternate Day Versus Daily Dosing of Atorvastatin Study (ADDAS). Am Heart J 2002;144:674-7.
  3. Backes JM et al. Effectiveness and tolerability of every-other-day rosuvastatin dosing in patients with prior statin intolerance. Ann Pharmacother 2008;42:341-6
  4. Reinhart KM. Strategies to preserve the use of statins in patients with previous muscular adverse effects.Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2012 Feb 15;69(4):291-300.

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