|
|
Statins Within 24 Hours Reduce Mortality Rates
Statins given within 24 hours of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) reduce complications and mortality, according to the results of a study based on a national registry of more than 170,000 AMI patients reported in the Sept. 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
Using data from 300,823 patients with AMI enrolled in the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction 4, the investigators compared in-hospital events between patients who continued statin therapy received before the index AMI hospitalization (n = 17,118) or newly started statin therapy within the first 24 hours of hospitalization (n = 21,978) and patients not receiving early statin treatment (n = 126,128) or who discontinued statin therapy (n = 9,411).
Compared with no statin use, new or continued statin treatment in the first 24 hours was associated with decreased risk of mortality (4.0% and 5.3% vs 15.4%, respectively). Discontinuing statin treatment was associated with a slightly higher risk of mortality (16.5%).
Early use of a statin was also associated with lower risks of cardiogenic shock, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, and rupture, but not of recurrent myocardial infarction. Based on propensity analysis, mortality odds ratios were 0.46 for continued therapy, 0.42 for newly started therapy, and 1.25 for discontinued therapy for matched pairs vs. no statin therapy (P < .0001 for all comparisons).
|
|
|
