Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 7, 2015; 21(25): 7860-7868
Published online Jul 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i25.7860
Resolution of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis by rosuvastatin monotherapy in patients with metabolic syndrome
Konstantinos Kargiotis, Vasilios G Athyros, Olga Giouleme, Niki Katsiki, Evangelia Katsiki, Panagiotis Anagnostis, Chrysoula Boutari, Michael Doumas, Asterios Karagiannis, Dimitri P Mikhailidis
Konstantinos Kargiotis, Vasilios G Athyros, Olga Giouleme, Niki Katsiki, Panagiotis Anagnostis, Chrysoula Boutari, Michael Doumas, Asterios Karagiannis, 2nd Prop. Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, Aristotle University, Hippocration Hospital, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Evangelia Katsiki, Department of Pathology, Hippocration Hospital, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Panagiotis Anagnostis, Department of Endocrinology, Hippocration Hospital, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Dimitri P Mikhailidis, Department of Clinical Biochemistry (Vascular Disease Prevention Clinic), Royal Free Campus, University College London Medical School, University College London, NW3 2QG London, United Kingdom
Dimitri P Mikhailidis, Department of Surgery, Royal Free Campus, University College London Medical School, University College London, NW3 2QG London, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Kargiotis K designed the study and recruited patients; Athyros VG designed the study, followed-up patients and wrote the paper; Giouleme O performed biopsies; Kastiki N followed-up patients; Katsiki E did pathology; Anagnostis P recruited patients; Boutari C followed up patients; Doumas M wrote the paper; Karagiannis A designed the protocol; Mikhailidis DP interpreted the results wrote the paper; all authors approved the final version of the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: This study was carried out independently; no company or institution supported it financially. Some of the authors have given talks, attended conferences and participated in trials and advisory boards sponsored by various pharmaceutical companies. Mikhailidis DP has given talks and attended conferences sponsored by Merck, Sharp & Dohme, AstraZeneca and Genzyme.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dimitri P Mikhailidis, MD, FFPM, FRCP, FRCPath Academic Head, Department of Clinical Biochemistry (Vascular Disease Prevention Clinic), Royal Free Campus, University College London Medical School, University College London, Pond Street, NW3 2QG London, United Kingdom. mikhailidis@aol.com
Telephone: +44-20-78302258 Fax: +44-20-78302235
Received: December 23, 2014
Peer-review started: December 25, 2014
First decision: March 10, 2015
Revised: March 31, 2015
Accepted: May 27, 2015
Article in press: May 27, 2015
Published online: July 7, 2015
Processing time: 196 Days and 19 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: We treated 20 patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and biopsy proven non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with rosuvastatin monotherapy for one year. Repeat liver biopsy and ultrasonography showed complete resolution of NASH in 19 patients, and normalization of liver enzymes, lipid profile and blood glucose; no patient had MetS at the end of the study. These findings suggest that rosuvastatin monotherapy could ameliorate biopsy proven NASH and resolve MetS within 12 mo. These effects and the reduction of fasting plasma glucose and serum uric acid levels, if confirmed by larger studies, may reduce the risk of vascular and liver morbidity and mortality in NASH patients.