Effect of statins in preventing postoperative atrial fibrillation following cardiac surgery

Postoperative occurrence of AF has been associated with less favourable outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac surgery and may result in increased postoperative morbidity and mortality.

A focused clinical question was designed and a meta-analysis of published studies was performed to identify the effect of preoperative use of statins on the occurrence of AF after cardiac surgery.

Using the Medline database, the Cochrane clinical trials database and online clinical trial databases, we reviewed all RCTs and observational studies examining the effect of statins on AF occurrence following cardiac surgery. We searched for the literature published before April 2009 and earlier.

This analysis identified six studies (observational studies) which examined the effect of preoperative use of statins on AF occurrence following cardiac surgery, involving 10,165 patients. Contradictory to most of previous studies, the overall outcomes suggested that the statins group did not have a significant decrease in AF occurrence following cardiac surgery comparing to control group (P=0.19).

The preoperative medication of statins showed no significant decrease in AF occurrence following cardiac surgery in this meta-analysis result. More prospective studies and researches are needed to explore and demonstrate the accurate mechanism and effect of statins on postoperative AF.