Many clinical trials support the benefits of statin treatment in reducing cardiovascular mortality in patients with heart disease. However, the value of statin therapy in reducing overall death in patients without heart-disease has not been well-established. Now, a large retrospective cohort study shows that adhering to statin treatment provides ongoing reduction in mortality among patients both with and without a known history of heart disease, according to an article published in the February 9, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine .

Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel and their colleagues evaluated 229,918 adult patients enrolled in a health maintenance organization who started statin treatment between 1998 and 2006. The average age of the enrollees was 57.6 years. The researchers measured the proportion of days covered with statins using the number of statin prescriptions dispensed between the date of each patient's first statin prescription and the end of the follow-up period. They found that, among patients both with and without heart disease, those who took their statins at least 90% of the time had a 45% reduced risk of death compared with patients who took their statins less than 10% of the time.

The researchers stated that this observed benefit was greater than expected based on previous randomized clinical trials. Although one of the limitations of this study was that evaluation of statin continuation was based on dispensing information rather than proven consumption, the researchers concluded that better continuity of statin treatment was associated with an ongoing reduction in mortality in patients both with and without known heart disease.

Source

Arch Intern Med 2009;169:260-268.