A Comparative Study on Atorvastatin Versus Methotrexate in Rheumatoid Arthritis in a Double Blind Placebo Control Trial

The therapeutic effects of methotrexate (MTX) are well-known in rheumatoid arthritis(RA).Also,anti inflammatory effects of atorvastatin have already been reported, but no study has compared the effects of these two drugs on RA.Therefore we designed this study to compare the effects of these drugs on patients with active RA. The study was conducted on 54 patients with active RA who had been undergoing Disease – Modifying -Anti Rheumatic- Drugs therapy for at least 3 months that included 7.5 mg methotrexate weekly. They were allocated into two groups. In addition to the 7.5 mg of MTX, one group received another 7.5 mg of MTX weekly and placebo daily and the other group received atorvastatin 40 mg daily and placebo weekly. They were followed up for 12 weeks. Some clinical aspects and the disease activity score (DAS) were evaluated at the beginning of the study and then at the weeks of 6th and 12th. After multiple comparisons by repeated measures, disease activity score and other variables showed a significant reduction in both groups at 12th week after treatment; however, the effect of both interventions was similar in change of DAS and other variables except for duration of morning stiffness, that it decreased more in statin than MTX group. No significant side effects causing to exclude the patients from the study were observed in any of the two groups. we concluded that statin, can serve an important role in treatment of RA.