Introduction: Rosuvastatin is a highly efficacious statin approved for use throughout the world. Rosuvastatin has been exhaustively evaluated in the setting of a broad variety of dyslipidemias and cardiovascular disease states in clinical trials encompassed within the GALAXY program.

Areas covered: The efficacy and adverse event profile of rosuvastatin are evaluated based on the results of randomized, controlled clinical trials and observational studies available in the Medline database.

Expert opinion: Rosuvastatin is a safe and efficacious lipid modifying drug in a broad variety of patient populations (men and women, irrespective of race) for treating multiple forms of dyslipidemia. Rosuvastatin reduces atherogenic lipoproteins and triglycerides and increases high-density lipoprotein cholesterol better than other statins. Compared to other statins, it has no excess signal for liver, skeletal muscle or renal toxicity. This is supported by evidence from both an extensive clinical trial program as well as post-marketing surveillance. The incidence of myalgia with this drug is comparable to that observed with other statins. Rosuvastatin does not depend on cytochrome P450 3A4-dependent metabolism and has a favorable drug interaction profile. Care must be taken to reduce the dose of rosuvastatin in patients of Asian ancestry or with stage IV chronic kidney disease (severe renal insufficiency), as well as patients being treated with protease inhibitors or cyclosporine.