Abstract
The clinical benefit brought about by HMG‐CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) may not entirely be due to their lipid‐lowering effect. Further investigation is necessary in order to determine the significance of ancillary effects to the clinical benefit of statin treatment.
We studied 27 polygenic hypercholesterolaemia (PHC) patients before and 3 and 6 months after fluvastatin treatment. A control group of 38 normal, sex and age matched, subjects were also studied.
The following parameters were measured: haematimetry, serum lipids and general biochemistry, apo‐A/B and lipoproteins, fibrinogen, blood filterability, red blood cell aggregation, blood and plasma viscosity.
PHC patients showed lower blood filterability (16.00±0.99 vs 19.90±2.90 μl/s), higher plasma fibrinogen (274.8±41.5 vs 241.6±43.2 mg/dl), increased erythrocyte aggregation at low shear stress (8.10±1.15 vs 7.19±1.29) and increased plasma viscosity (1.26±0.06 vs 1.23±0.05 mPa.s).
Notable lipid changes after 6 months fluvastatin treatment were not accompanied by measurable changes in the haemorheological alterations of the PHC patients.
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