27 Feb COVID-19: Prior Use of Statins Associated with Decreased Mortality in Hospitalized Patients

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Gupta

Aakriti Gupta MD MS
Fellow, Interventional Cardiology
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: While taking care of patients with COVID-19 last spring and summer at the height of the pandemic, we observed that patients who got very sick and required hospitalization had high rates of hyperinflammation with elevated CRP levels, and thromboembolic phenomena. As cardiologists who frequently prescribe statins for hyperlipidemia, they were a class of drugs that came naturally to mind for their anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant and immunomodulatory properties in addition to their cholesterol lowering properties. As such, we decided to look at the association of statin use with in-hospital mortality in patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response: We evaluated data for 2626 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and examined the differences in in-hospital mortality among patients who were previously on statins versus not. We found that antecedent use of statins as a home medication in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was associated with 53% lower odds of inpatient mortality in propensity-matched analyses, i.e when other factors like age and comorbidities are adjusted for. 

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: We are cautiously optimistic about these findings, and if these bear out in randomized controlled trials, then statins can provide a low-cost therapeutic strategy for these patients.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: Our findings are certainly compelling to lay the groundwork for clinical trials. We conducted several sensitivity analyses, and our findings remained consistent. The next step would be to conduct randomized controlled trials (several are underway) to confirm these findings. These should be performed for several target populations including outpatients, stable inpatients and critically-ill patients with COVID-19.

Disclosures as stated in the manuscript.

Citation:

Gupta, A., Madhavan, M.V., Poterucha, T.J. et al. Association between antecedent statin use and decreased mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Nat Commun 12, 1325 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21553-1

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Last Updated on February 27, 2021 by Marie Benz MD FAAD