OBJECTIVES: The safety of statins had been a controversial issue. Cerivastatin was withdrawn due to fatal rhabdomylosis, and the high dose of simvastatin was reported to cause liver failure. This study aims to compare the preferences on the benefits and risks of statins between the patients and physicians.   METHODS: Discrete choice experiments (DCE) were conducted to measure preferences on the benefits and risks of statins. Two benefit parameters were defined as low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduction (LDL) and myocardial infraction reduction (MI). And two risk attributes contained liver failure (Liv) and fatal rhabdomylosis (Rha). The questionnaires for the DCE were designed to satisfy orthogonality, level balance and minimum overlap. 287 subjects (patients 205, physician 82) were participated and repeatedly evaluated a choice set including two hypothetical statins with different level of each attributes. The survey was performed by face-to-face method among Korean patients who take anti-hypertensive or cholesterol-lowering drug, and hospital physicians who treat cardiovascular disease. The data were analyzed by conditional logit (SAS 9.3 software).  RESULTS: The physicians elicited the preferences for LDL [Mean(±SD):40.14% (±0.06)], MI 30.09%(±0.21), Liv 20.16%(±0.45) and Rha 9.55%(±0.29). While the patients estimated 38.88%(±0.15), 36.32%(±0.33), 11.55% (±0.35), 13.25%(±0.14) respectively. Regarding the willingness to accept risk in exchange for benefit of statins, the physicians accepted risk twice than patients when the statin reduced the MI from 25% to 40% but caused the average hepatotoxicity from 1% to 5%. CONCLUSIONS: Preference for the benefits of statins outweighs those of the risks in all respondents. However physicians consider greater importance of the Liv than the Rha while patients are opposite. Physicians and patients need try to narrow the perception gap regarding the risk of statins before starting treatment.  Acknowledge This was supported by the grant (13182MFDS703) form Mistry of Food and Drug Safety.