Muhammad Naeem Mengal, Sarfaraz Ali Zahid, Tariq Ashraf, Abida Munir Badini.
Frequency of adverse events associated with statin use in routine clinical practice in Pakistani population.
Pak Heart J Jan ;50(2):105-10.

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of adverse events associated with statins use in routine clinical practice in Pakistani population. Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted at PNS SHIFA a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan from January 2015 to December 2015. Male and female patients aged between 20-80 years who were taking statin for more than 3 months and were willing to participate in the study were included.Demographic data like age, gender, medical morbidities e.g. diabetes mellitus ,hypertension, ischemic heart disease, cerebrovasculr accident , type and dose of statin and outcome variables like hepatitis, myalgia, myositis and rhabdomyolysis were recorded in a performa. Sample size was calculated using open Epi software. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. P<0.05 was taken as significant. Result: A total of 1350 patients aged between 20-80 years of age(Mean age 55.7+-10.2 years) were included in the study. There were 53.1 % male patients.Majority of patients (56.9%) were between 41-60 years of age group. About 58.2% patients had diabetes mellitus ,41.9 % had hypertension,26 % patients had dyslipidimia, 88%patients were with ischemic heart disease and 9.41% patients had CVA. Rosuvastatin were prescribed to 56.3% patients, atorvastatin to 33%and simvastatin to 10.7% patients. Regarding the adverse effects, myalgias were most frequently reported in 6.7 % patients; myositis was noted in 0.8 % patients,while rhabdomyolysis was not reported in any patient. Statin induced hepatitis was noted in 2.9%. Conclusion: There is overall a low frequency of adverse events associated with the use of commonly prescribed statins in routine clinical practice. Further large scale studies are needed to validate our findings.

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