RESUMO
The authors review the results of the clinical use of lovastatin in 150 patients with associated coronary heart disease and coronary atherosclerosis (according to coronarography). All the patients suffered from primary non-familial hyperlipoproteinemia (of the IIa and IIb types) and were entered into the placebo-controlled studies of the effectiveness of lovastatin. After 3 months of the treatment there was a decrease in the levels of total cholesterol (by 36%) (p less than 0.001); the content of cholesterol LDLP dropped by 48% (p less than 0.001), and that of triglycerides by 19% (p less than 0.01), while the level of cholesterol HDLP rose. Side effects were recorded in an insignificant number of cases. Therefore, lovastatin is a highly effective and well tolerable drug for the treatment of patients with coronary heart disease and hyperlipoproteinemia.