Myonecrosis after elective percutaneous coronary intervention: effect of clopidogrel-statin interaction

A recent ex vivo study suggests that the metabolic activation of clopidogrel is catalyzed by cytochrom P450 (CYP) 3A4 and is competitively inhibited by atorvastatin, but not pravastatin.

To determine whether the incidence of procedure-related myocardial injury, assessed by cardiac troponin T (cTnT) release, is altered when clopidogrel is coadministered with a statin that is predominantly CYP3A4-metabolized.

Of the 211 consecutive patients who underwent coronary stenting after pretreatment with clopidogrel, 114 were receiving a CYP3A4-metabolized statin (59 simvastatin and 55 atorvastatin, Group 1), and 37 were receiving a non-CYP3A4-metabolized statin (30 pravastatin and 7 fluvastatin, Group 2) whereas 60 patients were not taking any statins (Control). All were troponin-negative before the procedure. The overall incidence of postprocedural cTnT positivity (> 0.10 ng/ml) was 30.8%. Group 2 patients were less likely to exhibit cTnT rise relative to Group 1 patients (8% versus 41.6%; p = 0.004) and relative to controls (8% versus 32.5%; p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis identified the use of a non-CYP3A4-metabolized statin before coronary stenting as the sole independent predictor for lower incidence of procedure-related cTnT elevation with estimated Odds ratios of 0.16 relative to no statin therapy (95% CI: 0.04-0.59; p = 0.006) and 0.18 relative to CYP3A4-metabolized statin therapy (95 CI: 0.053-0.637; p = 0.008)

Benefit derived from the preprocedural use of pravastatin and fluvastatin but not atorvastatin and simvastatin suggest that the ex vivo finding of a negative interaction when coadministering a CYP3A4-metabolized statin with clopidogrel may be of clinical significance.