Clinical benefits of pitavastatin: focus on patients with diabetes or at risk of developing diabetes

Abstract

Despite attaining LDL-cholesterol targets, many patients with diabetes remain at risk of developing cardiovascular events. In addition, treatment with statins has been associated with a slight but significant increased risk of development of diabetes, particularly with high-intensity statins. Pitavastatin is a moderate- to high-intensity statin that effectively reduces LDL-cholesterol levels. Pitavastatin provides a sustained increase of HDL-cholesterol levels that may exhibit a neutral or positive effect on glucose metabolism, may not increase the risk of new-onset diabetes, may exhibit positive effects on renal function and urinary albumin excretion and the risk of drug–drug interactions is low. Therefore, it seems that pitavastatin should preferentially be considered in the treatment of dyslipidemia in diabetic patients or at risk of developing diabetes.