Lower mortality following coronary arterial revascularization in patients taking statins

Numerous studies have suggested that statins have beneficial non-lipid-lowering effects, including reduction of systemic inflammatory response following surgery. We wanted to evaluate the effect of preoperative statin treatment on complications and operative mortality after coronary arterial revascularization.

We performed a retrospective study of 720 consecutive patients who underwent on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) (n = 513) or off-pump (OPCAB) (n = 207) in Iceland from 2002-2006. Patients taking statins preoperatively (n = 529) were compared with those not taking statins (n = 191). Predictors of complications and operative mortality were evaluated by univariate and multivariate analysis.

Cardiovascular risk profiles were similar. However, hypertension was more common in the statin group but EuroSCORE was slightly lower. Operative mortality was significantly lower in patients taking statins (1.7% vs. 5.8%, p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in the incidence of major complications. Multivariate analysis showed that preoperative statin treatment was an independent predictor of lower operative mortality (OR = 0.33, p = 0.043), even after adjusting for EuroSCORE, acute operations, advanced age, or other medications.

In this non- randomized study, patients taking statins had lower operative mortality than the controls after adjusting for multiple confounders. The reason for this might be linked to pleiotropic effects of statins.