[Influence of pravastatin therapy on expression of P-selectin].

OBJECTIVE To study the mechanism of pravastatin enhancing atherosclerosis regression. METHODS Patients with hypercholesterolemia were treated with pravastatin 10-20 mg/d for 4 and 8 weeks. The changes of blood cholesterol and platelet functions were examined. RESULTS After 4 weeks and 8 weeks treatment, the expression of platelet membrane P-selectin was decreased from 748 +/- 154 molecular number(MN)/platelet to 478 +/- 110 MN/platelet and 378 +/- 119 MN/platelet, respectively, plasma P-selectin was decreased from 24.3 +/- 9.9 micrograms/L to 16.8 +/- 4.5 and 16.1 +/- 4.0 micrograms/L, respectively, correlative with the lowering of blood cholesterol. Platelet P-selectin was positively correlated with plasma P-selectin(r = 0.8722). CONCLUSION The early benefit of pravastatin in enhancing atherosclerosis regression was partly due to the improvement of platelet function.