Assessment of the Role of Niacin in Managing Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Niacin remains a therapeutic option for patients with cardiovascular disease, but recent studies have called into question the effectiveness of other drugs that increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.

To systematically review and evaluate the evidence supporting current US Food and Drug Administration-approved uses of niacin in cardiovascular disease prevention settings.

MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Controlled Clinical Trial Register (Central), ClinicalTrials.gov, and TrialResults-center, from database inception to October 2017.

The systematic review included clinical trials involving niacin as a treatment for cardiovascular disease. The meta-analysis included randomized clinical trials reporting niacin's effect, as exposure, on at least 1 long-term cardiovascular disease outcome.

Aggregate study-level data were extracted between November 2017 and January 2018 by 3 independent reviewers, and the analysis was performed in February 2018. Inverse-variance weighted methods were used to produce pooled risk ratios using random-effects models for between-study heterogeneity. Random effects-weighted metaregression analysis was used to assess the association of change in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels with the log risk ratio of the pooled results.

Cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease mortality, and other cardiovascular events, including acute coronary syndrome, fatal and nonfatal stroke, revascularization, and major adverse cardiac events.

Of 119 clinical trials, 17 documented niacin's effect on at least 1 cardiovascular disease outcome. The meta-analysis included 35 760 patients with histories of cardiovascular disease or dyslipidemia. Cumulative evidence found no preventive association of niacin with cardiovascular outcomes in secondary prevention. Stratified meta-analysis showed an association of niacin monotherapy with reduction of some cardiovascular events among patients without statin treatment (acute coronary syndrome: relative risk, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.58-0.96; stroke: relative risk, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.59-0.94; revascularization: relative risk, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.37-0.72). These results were mainly derived from 2 trials conducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

Niacin may have some use in lipid control for secondary prevention as monotherapy, perhaps in patients intolerant to statins, but evidence is from older studies on a population potentially not representative of current-day patients.