Comparison between lovastatin and cholestyramine in the treatment of moderate to severe primary hypercholesterolaemia.

120 patients (64 men, 56 women) aged 19-66 years with primary hypercholesterolaemia (mean serum total cholesterol 10.1 mmol/l, range 6.5-16.3 mmol/l) with normal or moderately raised concentrations of serum triglycerides were randomised after four weeks' diet and four weeks' diet+placebo phase either to cholestyramine (40 patients) or lovastatin (80 patients) treatments for the succeeding 12 weeks. The maximal daily doses were 24 g of cholestyramine and 80 mg of lovastatin. The baseline data of the treatment groups were comparable with the exception of HDL-cholesterol concentrations, which were lower in the lovastatin group. The mean reductions in total serum cholesterol concentrations were 24.3% for cholestyramine (P less than or equal to 0.01) and 33.4% for lovastatin (P less than or equal to 0.01) (P less than or equal to 0.01 between the treatment groups), in LDL-cholesterol 32.1% (P less than or equal to 0.01) and 40.7% (P less than or equal to 0.01) (P less than or equal to 0.05 between the treatment groups) and in apolipoprotein B 23.3% (P less than or equal to 0.01) and 33.3% (P less than or equal to 0.01) (P less than or equal to 0.01 between the treatment groups), respectively. Lovastatin was the only drug to reduce serum triglyceride concentrations, it did so by 26.0%. HDL-cholesterol increased by 7.7% (P = NS) when cholestyramine was taken and by 13.5% (P less than or equal to 0.05) with lovastatin (P = NS between the treatment groups). Apolipoprotein A1 remained unchanged.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)