Association between the Use of Statins and Mortality in COVID-19 Patients: A Meta-Analysis

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Sahar Vahdat

Abstract

Background: Since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, efforts have been made for finding efficient and effective drugs for the treatment and management of COVID-19 patients. As various comorbidities including cardiovascular diseases increase the risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients, the use of statin has been suggested to be associated with decreased risk of mortality due to its pleiotropic and cardioprotective characteristics.


Objectives: This meta-analysis study aims at evaluating the association of statin use and mortality in COVID-19 patients in current literature.


Methods and Materials: A systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science data bases until 31 September, 2021. Studies that reported adjusted odds (aOR) or hazard ratios (aHR) for statin use and mortality in COVID-19 patients were included. A meta-analysis of the aOR or aHR were performed using the inverse variance weighted method with a common fixed effect model.


Results: Of the 25 included studies, 7 had reported adjusted hazard ratios and 18 reported aOR. The pooled aOR revealed that the use of statin significantly reduces the risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients (pooled odds ratio (OR) = 0.8224, 95% CI [0.7893; 0.8569], p-value < 0.0001). Although the pooled aHR suggests protective effect of statin use on mortality of COVID-19 patients, it was not statistically significant (pooled hazard ratio (HR) = 0.9043, 95% CI [0.8082; 1.0119], p-value = 0.075). No publication bias was observed.


Conclusion: Use of statin significantly reduces the risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients. This conclusion should not be misinterpreted into a clinical indication for statin administration in COVID-19 patients during or prior to hospitalization.

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