The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7365 p276
3 September 2005

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Early statin use decreases risk of mortality in acute MI

Use of a statin within 24 hours of admission to hospital for acute myocardial infarction lowers the rate of early complications and mortality, researchers suggest.

Gregg Fonarow, University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues used data from over 170,000 patients admitted to hospital with acute myocardial infarction. They compared in-hospital events in patients who continued statin therapy or started a statin within 24 hours of admission, with those who did not receive early statin treatment or whose statin was discontinued on admission.

The researchers found that new or continued use of statins was associated with a decreased risk of mortality compared with no statin use (4 per cent and 5.3 per cent compared with 15.4 per cent). Discontinuation of a statin was associated with a slightly increased risk of mortality (16.5 per cent).

The researchers say that prospective randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm their findings (American Journal of Cardiology 2005;96:611).