Atorvastatin is a member of the statin class and was first synthesized in 1985. Since it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996, atorvastatin has become one of the best-selling drugs in pharmaceutical history. In China, atorvastatin is the most widely used lipid-lowering drug, accounting for about 40% of the total use of statins for secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases [7,8]. In addition, the effectiveness and safety of atorvastatin have been confirmed by more than 200 randomized controlled trials. Controlled trials (RCTs), with the strongest clinical evidence of any statin. [9] Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the effect of atorvastatin in the Chinese population. In this article, we review the evaluation and patient considerations of atorvastatin in the Chinese population. what is atorvastatin

To identify all relevant literature dealing with the use of atorvastatin in the Chinese population, we performed a systematic search in PubMed using the following keywords: "atorvastatin" (supplementary concept) or "atorvastatin" (all domains ) and ("China"[AD] or "China"[all domains] or "China"[all domains]). All clinical or basic research articles on atorvastatin in the Chinese population were included in this review.
Atorvastatin calcium is the calcium salt of a chiral pentasubstituted pyrrole. Its molecular formula is C33H33CaFNO5 and its molecular weight is 582.6947[10] Like other statins, atorvastatin is a reversible competitive inhibitor of HMG-CoA reductase. HMG-CoA reductase catalyzes the reduction of HMG-CoA to mevalonate, the rate-limiting step in cholesterol synthesis in the liver. Inhibition of this enzyme reduces de novo cholesterol synthesis. [11,12] Simultaneously, drug action results in partial depletion of cellular cholesterol leading to increased expression of LDL receptors on hepatocytes. This increases the uptake of LDL by liver cells, thereby reducing the level of LDL cholesterol in the blood. Inhibition of cholesterol synthesis in hepatocytes results in decreased production of very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and an indirect reduction of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. [13] Like other statins, atorvastatin reduces blood triglyceride levels and slightly increases high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), though the mechanism is not fully understood.