Treatment with Lipitor - one of the cholesterol-lowering “statin” drugs - appears to reduce disease activity in people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, according to a UK study.

In the study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, 116 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were randomly assigned to take Lipitor (known chemically as atorvastatin) or an inactive placebo in addition to their current anti-rheumatic drug therapy.

Compared with placebo, atorvastatin therapy led to a significant improvement in disease activity during the 6-month study period, Dr. Iain McInnes, from the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in the UK, and colleagues report. The number of swollen joints the patients had fell to a greater extent with the drug than with placebo.

“These data show that statins can mediate modest but clinically apparent anti-inflammatory effects with modification of vascular risk factors in the context of high-grade autoimmune inflammation,” the team concludes.

In a related editorial, Dr. Lars Klareskog and Dr. Anders Hamsten, from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, comment, “Although of limited size and short term, (the researchers’) findings support the use of atorvastatin, and presumably of other statins, to prevent cardiovascular disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.”

###

SOURCE: Lancet, June 19, 2004.