MONDAY, March 3, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- In patients with statin-related myalgia, single-patient randomized trials of statin and placebo can determine whether the myalgia is actually due to the statin, according to a small study published in the March 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Tisha R. Joy, M.D., from Western University in London, Canada, and colleagues conducted n-of-1 trials in eight patients with statin-related myalgia. Patients were randomly assigned to statin or placebo for up to three weeks, with three-week washout intervals.
The researchers found that for each patient there were no significant differences between statin or placebo in terms of visual analog scale myalgia score, symptom-specific visual analog scale score, pain interference score, and pain severity score. Five patients resumed statin treatment, reducing their low-density lipoprotein cholesterol after a median of 10 months of follow-up.
"In selected patients with a history of statin-related myalgia whose symptoms are difficult to evaluate, n-of-1 trials may be a useful method for determining statin tolerability," Joy and colleagues conclude.
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