Ongoing statin treatment may be beneficial for patients after isolated surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR), research presented at the 2023 European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) annual meeting (4–7 October, Vienna, Austria) has found.
The paper, presented by Emily Pan (University of Turku, Turku, Finland), was one of a handful of studies selected for presentation during a “President’s Choice” session, which spotlighted important studies across a number of domains.
Though previous reports have shown that statin use is associated with better survival after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), little is known about statin use after SAVR, the presenter stated.
Pan presented the findings from multiple population-based registries with data close to 12,000 patients investigating the associations between time-updated statin use and major cardiovascular events (MACE) including myocardial infarction (MI), stroke and all-cause mortality, as well as secondary endpoints which include each component of MACE, cardiovascular mortality, peripheral arterial disease, heart failure and new aortic valve intervention.
Potential associations between statin use and MACE in predefined subgroups based on age, sex, type of prosthesis and comorbidities were also categorised, as well as the potential associations between statin treatment intensity and MACE.
Of the 11,893 patients included in the study, all of whom were treated between 2006–2020, 50.5% were dispensed with statins at baseline, 26.6% with high intensity, 68.4% with intermediate intensity, and 3.5% low intensity. The median follow-up time was 5.4 years, Pan reported, as well as noting that patients with statins at baseline were significantly older, more often male, had higher body mass index and more comorbidities than those not receiving statin treatment.
The results presented by Pan indicate that ongoing statin use in patients with aortic stenosis after SAVR is associated with significantly lower risk for MACE, all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality in both adjusted Cox regression model and after propensity score matching, while ongoing statin therapy was also associated with significantly lower risk for MACE in all predefined subgroups.
Both intermediate and high intensity statins were associated with a reduced risk for MACE.
Reflecting on the findings, Pan said that ongoing statin treatment appears to be beneficial for patients after isolated SAVR and should be perhaps considered for the future updated guidelines.
