Early signals of motor disorders and pleiotropic effects of statins

Abstract

The most spread drugs to treat dyslipidemia alone or with hypertriglyceridemia are statins. These active ingredients are considered safe and effective. But, with all drugs, there are adverse reactions related to them, in this case, muscular disorders such as myalgia and the complication of rhabdomyolysis. Furthermore, other adverse reactions are less studied but interesting to know, such as motor disorders. Pharmacovigilance tools must maintain the tracing of risks for effects that appear and search for positive signals; one of them is to analyze suspected adverse drug reactions of active ingredients reported through the international repository of the World Health Organization with an adaptation of data mining Bayesian methodology. Surprisingly, almost all positive motor signals are not stated as adverse drug reactions in technical factsheets and, at the same time, are related to some pleiotropic effects of statins. This chapter tries to summarize this evidence for specific pairs of statins and potential motor disorders for further investigation.