Preoperative Statins Found to Reduce AF and Length of Stay but Not Mortality

April 18th, 2012

Preoperative Statins Found to Reduce AF and Length of Stay but Not Mortality

Larry Husten, PHD

In a systematic review published in the Cochrane Library, investigators at the University of Cologne in Germany analyzed data from 11 trials that tested the effects of preoperative statins in 984 patients undergoing heart surgery. Preoperative administration of statins reduced the risk for developing atrial fibrillation (AF) and shortened the length of stay in the ICU and in the hospital, but did not have a statistically significant effect on mortality or MI:

Postoperative AF: OR: 0.40, CI: 0.29 to 0.55, p<0.01
ICU length of stay: WMD (weighted mean difference): -3.39 hours, CI -5.77 to -1.01
Hospital length of stay: WMD: -0.48 days, CI: -0.85 to -0.11
Short-term mortality: OR: 0.98, CI: 0.14 to 7.10, p=0.98
MI: OR: 0.52, CI: 0.2. to 1.30

The authors noted that the studies mostly contained patients undergoing myocardial revascularization, so the findings might not apply to other cardiac procedures.

“To get a clearer picture of the potential benefits of taking statins before a heart operation, we need to have more clinical trials and find out whether clinical outcomes can be further improved if patients use special statin dosing regimens shortly before a heart procedure,” said lead researcher Oliver Liakopoulos, in a Cochrane Library press release.

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April 18th, 2012