Observation on the short and long term response to anti-lipemic drugs in southern Thailand.

ABSTRACT

Patients with dyslipidemia were evaluated with regard to the 5 drugs regimen simvastatin (average dose, 11.8 mg/day), gemfibrozil (dose 963 mg/day), bezafibrate (433 mg/day), fenofibrate (211 mg/day) and acipimox (667 mg/day). The responses to the drug were divided into different time periods and the magnitude of responses were presented either as average changes in per cent from baseline or as proportion of patients (also in %) whose levels changed by a predetermined percentage. These predetermined percentage took into account the variation observed among patients who had more than 3 measurements during baseline. These levels for significant changes were 16 per cent for total cholesterol (TC), 25-30 per cent for high- and low-density lipoprotein (HDL and LDL), and 44 per cent for triglyceride (TG). Our subjects responded to the drugs within the range reported by other investigators except for acipimox which produced no alteration. Sixty to 100 per cent of patients reduced their TC by 16 per cent with an average change in TC of around -16 per cent to -24 per cent. Simvastatin and fenofibrate appeared most effective in altering TC. The HDL increased 10 per cent to 29 per cent depending on the drug but in terms of proportion that responded by an increment greater than 25 per cent, this was seen in only 23 per cent to 45 per cent of the patients. Long term follow-up which was possible only on 42 patients showed 11 who lessened their response and 6 whose response became more marked.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)