The safety of rosuvastatin: effects on renal and hepatic function

Abstract

Statins, or 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors, have been shown to reduce elevated serum cholesterol resulting in a reduced risk of coronary artery disease and its complications. Rosuvastatin is the latest of the class of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors and has the most potent reduction of low-density lipoprotein and elevation of high-density lipoprotein in the class. Questions have been raised about its safety. In a careful examination of the data, rosuvastatin has the same rate of elevations of hepatic enzymes as the other statins. Whether any of the statins actually cause significant liver injury is doubtful, and this raises questions about the usefulness of routine monitoring of liver enzymes in statin patients. Rosuvastatin has been noted to produce low levels of transient proteinuria. However, transient proteinuria is seen with other comparable statins. Long-term administration of rosuvastatin and other statins have been shown not to be associated with any decline in renal function, but instead have been shown to produce modest but clear improvement in glomerular filtration rate. Therefore, it is clear that rosuvastatin, and other statins, are very safe and useful agents and do not appear to present significant risks to hepatic or renal safety.