Pitavastatin - a novel therapeutic milestone.

Treatment for hypercholesterolemia aims to suppress the progression of early atherosclerotic changes and prevent the onset of future cardiovascular events. Drugs to treat hypercholesterolemia should thus have sufficient longterm lipid-lowering and direct antiatherosclerotic effects. Pitavastatin is a 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitor (statin) that was developed in Japan. In addition to its long-term lipid-lowering effects, pitavastatin also exerts pleiotropic effects against atherosclerotic changes. Although few studies have investigated the mechanism of pitavastatin, its pleiotropic effects have encouraged its use to treat both hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis. Pentraxin-related protein PTX3, a prototype protein of the pentraxin family, could serve as a novel useful blood marker to assess dynamic inflammation during the early atherosclerotic stages. This review clarifies the long-term lipid-lowering and antiatherosclerotic effects of pitavastatin.