This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Lipids and Lipid Disorders  • Cardiovascular Disease/ Myocardial Infarction  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: In their study of very high-intensity statin therapy, Dr Nissen and colleagues¹ found that use of a high-dose statin may be able to reverse atherosclerosis. However, I am concerned about statements in the article such as "regression was achieved by reducing LDL-C" that imply that it was changes in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) that were responsible for the observed plaque regressions.

This study showed only that giving rosuvastatin at 40 mg/d on average produced plaque regressions, large reductions in LDL-C levels, and modest increases in HDL-C levels; it did not show a causal link among these 3 findings. Whether it was the low LDL-C, the increase in HDL-C, some combination of these, or none of these but some other action of the drug (eg, pleiotropic effects) that was responsible cannot be inferred from the results reported. Table 4 in the article indicates . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Sid C. Port, PhD
sport@ucla.edu
University of California, Los Angeles

RELATED ARTICLES

High-Dose Statins and Atherosclerosis Regression
Yoseph Rozenman
JAMA. 2006;296(15):1836.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

High-Dose Statins and Atherosclerosis Regression
Clemens von Birgelen and Marc Hartmann
JAMA. 2006;296(15):1837.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

High-Dose Statins and Atherosclerosis Regression—Reply
Steven E. Nissen
JAMA. 2006;296(15):1837.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Effect of Very High-Intensity Statin Therapy on Regression of Coronary Atherosclerosis: The ASTEROID Trial
Steven E. Nissen, Stephen J. Nicholls, Ilke Sipahi, Peter Libby, Joel S. Raichlen, Christie M. Ballantyne, Jean Davignon, Raimund Erbel, Jean Charles Fruchart, Jean-Claude Tardif, Paul Schoenhagen, Tim Crowe, Valerie Cain, Kathy Wolski, Marlene Goormastic, E. Murat Tuzcu, and for the ASTEROID Investigators
JAMA. 2006;295(13):1556-1565.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

High-Dose Statins in Acute Coronary Syndromes: Not Just Lipid Levels
Steven E. Nissen
JAMA. 2004;292(11):1365-1367.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT