Sepsis is a critical, life-threatening condition usually triggered by a bacterial infection that can lead to organ dysfunction and failure. Research shows that 30-day septic shock mortality lies at 32- 34% in the US and Europe.
Beyond their lipid-lowering effects, statins have shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, sparking interest in using the drug as an adjunctive therapy for a variety of inflammatory disorders such as autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis, and sepsis. Studies investigating the effects of statins on sepsis however, have until now yielded mixed results.
“Previous randomized controlled trial may not have found a benefit of statins in patients with sepsis due to underreporting of sepsis diagnoses, small sample sizes, and failure to account for the complex interactions between statin use and patient characteristics,” corresponding author of the study, Dr. Caifeng Li, an associate professor at Tianjin Medical University General Hospital in China, said in a press release.
In this instance, researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from the Medical Information Mart in Intensive Care-IV (MIMIC-IV) database which holds anonymized healthcare data from 265,000 patients admitted to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Boston between 2008 and 2019. They analyzed data from 6070 patients who used statins and 6070 who did not during an intensive care unit stay for sepsis.
Ultimately, the 28-day all-cause mortality rate stood at 14.3% in the statin group and 23.4% in the no-statin group, indicating a 39% reduction. They researchers noted, however, that the duration of mechanical ventilation or continuous renal replacement therapy increased by an average of 3 hours and 26 hours, respectively, among those receiving statins.
“An ideal randomized controlled trial to confirm or reject our results should include a large sample size of sepsis patients, with detailed information on statin types, doses, and treatment duration. It should also carefully consider the timing of statin initiation and control for potential confounders,” said Li.
Sources: EurekAlert, Frontiers in Immunology
