Use of Zocor with History of Hepatitis

Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Use of Zocor with History of Hepatitis

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Question:

Can you take Zocor if you have had hepatitis?

Answer:

The answer is a simple "yes."

Zocor is a statin drug. Statins are used to lower cholesterol. They sometimes cause mild elevations of the serum aminotransferases. These enzymes form in the liver and release into the blood when the liver becomes inflamed. For this reason, doctors had early concerns that statins could result in liver injury in some people.

However, many thousands of people have used and are using statins. Serious liver injury is an extraordinarily rare side effect.

Even people with ongoing elevations of these enzymes — due to fatty livers or low-grade chronic viral hepatitis — do not seem to suffer any additional liver injury when put on statins. So your background of "having had" hepatitis, presumably with a full recovery, would not exclude you from being a candidate for the statin Zocor.

Stephen Goldfinger, M.D., is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a graduate of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his clinical base is at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

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Last updated:	July 20, 2009

Medical content reviewed by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Harvard Health Publications, Copyright © 2007 by President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Used with permission of StayWell.

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