Sepsis Mortality in Critical Care and Prior Statin Therapy: A Retrospective Cohort Study in Central Argentina

Sepsis is a major public health problem, frequent, costly, and often fatal. Despite of improvements in supportive treatments the incidence of sepsis and the number of deaths related to sepsis is increasing. Statins have been recently proposed as adjuvants in the treatment of sepsis, but its effects on mortality show conflicting results worldwide.

The purpose of this study was to describe the clinical outcome of patients diagnosed with sepsis in a university-affiliated hospital in central Argentina and to evaluate it in relation to a group of septic patients with previous use of statins before the onset of sepsis.

The present study was conducted as an observational retrospective research from April 2010 to December 2014 with patients over 18 years of age which were assigned to statins or control groups. Out of 2906 patients, 231 matched study and diagnostic criteria for sepsis and among them 33 (14.3%) belonged to the group of statins. The mean age was 64.2 ± 14.3 years.

The severity of sepsis on admission was as follows: Sepsis, n=147 (63.6%), Severe sepsis, n=26 (11.3%) and Septic shock, n=58 (25.1%). The mean length of stay in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was10.8 ± 9.6 days and 21.2 ± 17 days in general hospital ward settings, without differences between groups of statin users and controls, p=0.873 and p=0.766, respectively. The in-hospital mortality rate was 31.2% (n=72). Previous statin use did not affect in-hospital or 30-day mortality (OR 0.978; 95% CI 0.339 to 2.274; p=0.789). Creatinine levels on days 3 and 14 were substantially higher in statins group (1.80 ±1.39 vs. 1.45 ± 1.47 mg/dl) (p=0.010) and (1.42 ± 1.14 vs. 1.09 ± 1.05 mg/dl) (p=0.009), respectively.

Prior use of statins did not reduce in-hospital or 30-day mortality in septic patients and it may be associated with impaired renal function in this group of Argentinian participants.