Improvement of Blood Oxygen Diffusion Capacity and Anginal Symptoms by Cholesterol Lowering with Simvastatin

Objective: To assess the hypothesis that a cholesterol-lowering regimen with simvastatin would improve red blood cell (RBC) oxygen diffusion, and that such improvement would correlate with the intensity of anginal symptoms and with exercise electrocardiogram (ECG) changes. Methods: Desaturated venous blood samples from 18 hypercholesterolemic volunteer subjects with exertional chest pain were collected before and after they took 40 mg of simvastatin daily for 12 weeks. Blood samples were standardized to a hematocrit of 40% and a hemoglobin correction factor of 13.5 mg/dL; they were circulated in a closedloop diffusion chamber to full oxygen saturation (O2Sat) and then desaturated to about 70%. O2Sat was measured in a continuous blood oxygen diffusion sysBuckwald-vol4,no3 1/10/70 8:04 PM Page 410