May 31st, By Todd Neale, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today, 

“More intense statin therapy is associated with greater reductions in atherosclerotic plaque inflammation, which may or may not explain the drugs’ effects on cardiovascular events, an imaging study showed.

Both 10-mg and 80-mg doses of atorvastatin reduced a marker of plaque inflammation on fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) imaging, but the reduction was 10.6% greater through 12 weeks with the higher dose (P=0.01), according to Ahmed Tawakol, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.

The reductions in inflammation were seen as early as 4 weeks into the study, the researchers reported online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.”