Lipid-altering efficacy of switching to ezetimibe/simvastatin 10/20 mg versus rosuvastatin 10 mg in high-risk patients with and without metabolic syndrome

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a clustering of atherosclerotic coronary heart disease risk factors. This post-hoc analysis compared the effects of switching to ezetimibe/simvastatin 10/20 mg or rosuvastatin 10 mg in a cohort of 618 high-risk hypercholesterolaemic patients with (n=368) and without (n=217) MetS who had previously been on statin monotherapy. Patients were randomised 1:1 to double-blind ezetimibe/simvastatin 10/20 mg or rosuvastatin 10 mg for 6 weeks. Least squares mean percent change from baseline and 95% confidence intervals in lipid efficacy parameters were calculated for the population and within subgroups. Treatment with ezetimibe/simvastatin was significantly more effective than rosuvastatin at lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, total cholesterol, non- high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and apolipoprotein B (all p<0.001). No significant differences in treatment effects were seen between the presence and absence of MetS. In this post-hoc analysis of high-risk hypercholesterolaemic patients the lipid-reducing effects of ezetimibe/simvastatin or rosuvastatin were not altered significantly by the presence of MetS.