Safety Aspects of Statins: Which Factors Create the Adverse Effects of Statins

Statins have been shown to have beneficial effects on myocardial infarction, revascularization, stroke, and cardiovascular mortality in numerous clinical trials. Seven kinds of statins are available today and have different characteristics in their efficacy of LDLlowering, their metabolism and their adverse effects including hepatic injury, muscle disease, renal injury and neurologic injury. Muscle disease is the most discussed adverse effect with the use of statins including rhabdomyolysis, the most serious one. Hepatic injury with high dose statin use should be mentioned, although the incidence is low. Statins are well-tolerated and have been extremely well studied all over the world. As the contribution of statins in preventing cardiovascular events has already been proven, physicians should not hesitate to prescribe statins to patients not only with hypercholesterolemia, but also to those with high risks.