Rosuvastatin Interethnic PK Study

Statins are the first-line and most commonly prescribed drugs for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and stroke in the world. Our preliminary studies suggest that Caucasians might have a higher risk of developing potentially life-threatening drug-drug interactions than Asians when taking statins. Drug-drug interactions occur in the body when two or more drugs interact in a way that alters their effectiveness and/or toxicity. These interactions are becoming an increasingly severe problem with statin usage since patients at higher risk for cardiovascular diseases also take statins combined with many other drugs, such as antihypertensive and diabetic drugs. Our study is aimed at understanding the molecular factors and providing a sound basis for the interethnic dosage and response differences for statins. Drug-transporting proteins in intestine and liver tissues are responsible for taking up statins into the blood. It is hypothesized that there are interethnic function differences of these proteins and that they account for differences in statin blood levels between Caucasians and Asians and the frequency and/or severity of their respective drug-drug interactions. A clinical study will be conducted with Caucasian and Asian subjects undergoing gastric bypass surgery so excess intestine and liver tissue can be acquired as part of the standard procedure. Protein levels will be quantified in the tissues and correlate them with different statin blood levels.