RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Does short preoperative statin therapy prevent infectious complications in adults undergoing cardiac or non-cardiac surgery?
JF Saudi Medical Journal
JO Saudi Med J
FD Prince Sultan Military Medical City
SP 492
OP 497
DO 10.15537/smj.2016.5.13733
VO 37
IS 5
A1 Hua Li
A1 Yuan-Long Lin
A1 Shu-Ling Diao
A1 Bao-Xin Ma
A1 Xian-Liang Liu
YR 2016
UL http://smj.org.sa/content/37/5/492.abstract
AB Objectives: To evaluate the effect of preoperative statin therapy on the incidence of postoperative infection.Methods: This systematic review of the literature was carried out in August 2015. Studies were retrieved via PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library (1980 to 2015), and the reference files were limited to English-language articles. We used a standardized protocol, and a meta-analysis was performed for data abstraction.Results: Five studies comprising 1,362 patients qualified for the analysis. The incidence of postoperative infections in the statin group (1.1%) was not significantly lower than that in the placebo group (2.4%), with a risk ratio (RR) of 0.56 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.24-1.33, p=0.19). Patients of 3 studies underwent cardiac surgery. The aggregated results of these studies failed to show significant differences in postoperative infection when a fixed effects model was used (RR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.08-1.97, p=0.26].Conclusions: We failed to find sufficient evidence to support the association between statin use and postoperative infectious complications. The absence of any evidence for a beneficial effect in available randomized trials reduces the likelihood of a causal effect as reported in observational studies.