Statin usage and all-cause and disease-specific mortality in a nationwide study
Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 10/03/2011
Clinical Article
Haukka J et al. – In this nationwide study, long–term use of statins is associated with the reduction in coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality.
Methods- The study population included all statin users in Finland who had purchased at least one prescription between 1997 and 2005.
- A control population matched for age, sex, and place of residence and without statin usage was selected.
- The study population consisted of 336618 pairs of individuals, and the mean length of follow–up was 4.4years.
- All–cause mortality and mortality caused by coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, other circulatory causes, cancer, unnatural causes, and suicide were analyzed.
- Persistence to treatment was calculated by varying adherence criteria between 20 and 80%.
- The authors observed association between all–cause, non–CHD and CHD and treatment with statins in statin user group.
- For CHD mortality, the authors observed a relationship between the persistence to statin treatment and a decreasing CHD mortality.
- For each 10% increase in adherence criteria, a 5% (2–8%) decrease in CHD mortality was observed within the range of 20% (RR 0.81, 95%CI 0.32–2.02) to 80% (RR 0.54, 95%CI 0.46–0.64).
