Survival Benefits of Statins for Primary Prevention: A Cohort Study

Effect of statin use for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease among older adults: a cautionary tale concerning target trials emulation

OBJECTIVES

Evidence concerning the effect of statins in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among older adults is lacking. Using Quebec population-wide administrative data, we emulated a hypothetical randomized trial including older adults >65 years on April 1, 2013, with no CVD history and no statin use in the previous year.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We included individuals who initiated statins and classified them as exposed if they were using statin at least 3 months after initiation and nonexposed otherwise. We followed them until March 31, 2018. The primary outcome was the composite endpoint of coronary events (myocardial infarction, coronary bypass, and percutaneous coronary intervention), stroke, and all-cause mortality. The intention-to-treat (ITT) effect was estimated with adjusted Cox models and per-protocol effect with inverse probability of censoring weighting.

RESULTS

A total of 65,096 individuals were included (mean age = 71.0 ± 5.5, female = 55.0%) and 93.7% were exposed. Whereas we observed a reduction in the composite outcome (ITT-hazard ratio (HR) = 0.75; 95% CI: 0.68-0.83) and mortality (ITT-HR = 0.69; 95% CI: 0.61-0.77) among exposed, coronary events increased (ITT-HR = 1.46; 95% CI: 1.09-1.94). All multibias E-values were low indicating that the results were not robust to unmeasured confounding, selection, and misclassification biases simultaneously.

CONCLUSION

We cannot conclude on the effectiveness of statins in primary prevention of CVD among older adults. We caution that an in-depth reflection on sources of biases and careful interpretation of results are always required in observational studies.

Effect of Statins on All-Cause Mortality in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Propensity Score-Matched Studies

Statins are lipid-lowering medications used for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the pleiotropic effects of statins might be beneficial in other chronic diseases. This meta-analysis investigated the association between statin use and mortality in different chronic conditions. Eligible studies were real-world studies that compared all-cause mortality over at least 12 months between propensity score-matched statin users and non-users. Overall, 54 studies were included: 21 in CVD, 6 in chronic kidney disease, 6 in chronic inflammatory diseases, 3 in cancer, and 18 in other diseases. The risk of all-cause mortality was significantly reduced in statin users (hazard ratio: 0.72, 95% confidence interval: 0.66−0.76). The reduction in mortality risk was similar in CVD studies (0.73, 0.66−0.76) and non-CVD studies (0.70, 0.67−0.79). There were no significant differences in the risk reduction between cohorts with different diseases (p = 0.179). The greatest mortality reduction was seen in studies from Asia (0.61, 0.61−0.73) and the lowest in studies from North America (0.78, 0.73−0.83) and Australia (0.78, 0.62−0.97). There was a significant heterogeneity (I2 = 95%, tau2 = 0.029, p < 0.01). In conclusion, statin use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of all-cause mortality in real-world cohorts with CVD and non-CVD.

Statin use in older people primary prevention on cardiovascular disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Evidence on statin use for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older people needs to be extended and updated, aiming to provide further guidance for clinical practice.

Methods

PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched for eligible observational studies comparing statin use vs. no-statin use for primary prevention of CVD in older people (age ≥ 65 years). The primary outcomes were all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD)/myocardial infraction (MI), stroke and total CV events. Risk estimates of each relevant outcome were synthesized as a hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) using in the random-effects model.

Results

Twelve eligible observational studies (n = 1,627,434) were enrolled. The pooled results suggested that statin use was associated with a significantly decreased risk of all-cause mortality (HR: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.46-0.63), CVD mortality (HR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.39-0.65), CHD/MI (HR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.69-1.00), stroke (HR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.68-0.92) and total CV events (HR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.66-0.85). The association in all-cause mortality still remained obvious at higher ages ( ≥ 70 years old, HR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.44-0.71; ≥ 75 years old, HR: 0.70, 95% CI: 0.60-0.80; ≥ 85 years old, HR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.74-0.97), ≥ 20% (HR: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.35-0.62) and < 20% diabetic populations (HR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.40-0.64), and ≥ 50% (HR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.59-0.79) and < 50% hypertensive populations (HR: 0.38, 95% CI: 0.16-0.88).

Conclusions

Statin use was related to a 46%, 49%, 17%, 21% and 25% risk reduction on all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, CHD/MI, stroke and total CV events in older patients, respectively. The significant association was also addressed in older patients and ≥ 75 years old individuals for CVD primary prevention.

Association of statin use in older people primary prevention group with risk of cardiovascular events and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

BACKGROUND

Current evidence from randomized controlled trials on statins for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older people, especially those aged > 75 years, is still lacking. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies to extend the current evidence about the association of statin use in older people primary prevention group with risk of CVD and mortality.

METHODS

PubMed, Scopus, and Embase were searched from inception until March 18, 2021. We included observational studies (cohort or nested case-control) that compared statin use vs non-use for primary prevention of CVD in older people aged ≥ 65 years; provided that each of them reported the risk estimate on at least one of the following primary outcomes: all cause-mortality, CVD death, myocardial infarction (MI), and stroke. Risk estimates of each relevant outcome were pooled as a hazard ratio (HR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) using the random-effects meta-analysis model. The quality of the evidence was rated using the GRADE approach.

RESULTS

Ten observational studies (9 cohorts and one case-control study; n = 815,667) fulfilled our criteria. The overall combined estimate suggested that statin therapy was associated with a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality (HR: 0.86 [95% CI 0.79 to 0.93]), CVD death (HR: 0.80 [95% CI 0.78 to 0.81]), and stroke (HR: 0.85 [95% CI 0.76 to 0.94]) and a non-significant association with risk of MI (HR 0.74 [95% CI 0.53 to 1.02]). The beneficial association of statins with the risk of all-cause mortality remained significant even at higher ages (> 75 years old; HR 0.88 [95% CI 0.81 to 0.96]) and in both men (HR: 0.75 [95% CI: 0.74 to 0.76]) and women (HR 0.85 [95% CI 0.72 to 0.99]). However, this association with the risk of all-cause mortality remained significant only in those with diabetes mellitus (DM) (HR 0.82 [95% CI 0.68 to 0.98]) but not in those without DM. The level of evidence of all the primary outcomes was rated as "very low."

CONCLUSIONS

Statin therapy in older people (aged ≥ 65 years) without CVD was associated with a 14%, 20%, and 15% lower risk of all-cause mortality, CVD death, and stroke, respectively. The beneficial association with the risk of all-cause mortality remained significant even at higher ages (> 75 years old), in both men and women, and in individuals with DM, but not in those without DM. These observational findings support the need for trials to test the benefits of statins in those above 75 years of age.

Do statins reduce mortality in older people? Findings from a longitudinal study using primary care records

Objective

Assess whether statins reduce mortality in the general population aged 60 years and above.

Design

Retrospective cohort study.

Setting

Primary care practices contributing to The Health Improvement Network database, England and Wales, 1990–2017.

Participants

Cohort who turned age 60 between 1990 and 2000 with no previous cardiovascular disease or statin prescription and followed up until 2017.

Results

Current statin prescription was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality from age 65 years onward, with greater reductions seen at older ages. The adjusted HRs of mortality associated with statin prescription at ages 65, 70, 75, 80 and 85 years were 0.76 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.81), 0.71 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.75), 0.68 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.72), 0.63 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.73) and 0.54 (95% CI 0.33 to 0.92), respectively. The adjusted HRs did not vary by sex or cardiac risk.

Conclusions

Using regularly updated clinical information on sequential treatment decisions in older people, mortality predictions were updated every 6 months until age 85 years in a combined primary and secondary prevention population. The consistent mortality reduction of statins from age 65 years onward supports their use where clinically indicated at age 75 and older, where there has been particular uncertainty of the benefits.

Do statins play any role in reducing the incidence and mortality of ovarian cancer? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the relationship between statin consumption and risk of incidence of ovarian cancer (OC) and associated mortality.

Methods

Computerized searches were conducted in three electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus). Two calibrated authors performed the publications selection, data extraction, and quality assessment of the selected publications. The quality of the included articles was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for observational studies, and Jadad criteria for randomized clinical trials (RCTs). The electronic searches retrieved 2272 titles/abstracts. After the deletion of duplicate publications, 2030 titles/abstracts were assessed. Eighteen articles were included.

Results

Meta-analysis demonstrated that risk ratio (RR) of the association between statin consumption and OC incidence was 0.88 (95% CI = 0.75-1.03, P = 0.109). Patients receiving statin were less likely to die than those who did not receive statin, with a statistically significant association [RR = 0.76 (95% CI 0.67-0.86, P = 0.0001)]. There was no evidence of publication bias in examining the association between statin consumption and the risk of incidence and mortality from OC.

Conclusions

This study determined that statin use reduced the incidence risk of OC and significantly increased the survival in OC patients.