A multicenter, double-blind, one-year study comparing safety and efficacy of atorvastatin versus simvastatin in patients with hypercholesterolemia

Abstract

We directly compared the safety and efficacy of atorvastatin and simvastatin in hypercholesterolemic patients. This 1-year, randomized, double-blind study was performed at 9 community- and university-based research hospitals in Australia. One-hundred seventy-seven patients between the ages of 18 and 80 years with baseline low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol ≤4.14 and ≤7.76 mmol/L (160 and 300 mg/dl, respectively) and triglycerides ≤4.52 mmol/L (400 mg/dl) received once-daily dosing with atorvastatin (Lipitor) 10 mg or simvastatin (Zocor) 10 mg. At week 16, the dose of medication was titrated to atorvastatin 20 mg or simvastatin 20 mg if patients did not meet LDL cholesterol target of ≤..