Statins reduce short- and long-term mortality associated with postoperative atrial fibrillation after coronary artery bypass grafting: impact of postoperative atrial fibrillation and statin therapy on survival Full Text
Clinical Cardiology, 04/17/2012
Clinical Article
Girerd N et al. – Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is an independent predictor of both short– and long–term mortality following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Moreover, statin therapy was independently associated with better survival in patients with POAF.
Methods- Authors retrospectively analyzed the preoperative and operative data of 6728 consecutive patients undergoing a first isolated CABG.
- The incidence of POAF was 27.8%.
- Operative mortality was higher in patients with POAF compared to those without POAF (2.3% vs 0.9%, P < 0.001).
- On multivariate analysis, POAF remained an independent predictor of operative mortality (odds ratio [OR]: 1.78, P = 0.01).
- Patients with POAF also had reduced long–term survival (6–year survival: 85.3% vs 89.2%, P < 0.001).
- After adjusting for other predictors of mortality, POAF was significantly associated with increased long–term mortality (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.35, P = 0.04).
- Of note, after adjustment for potential confounders, statin treatment had a highly protective effect in POAF patients for both operative mortality (OR: 0.38, P = 0.003) and long–term mortality (HR: 0.62, P = 0.03), whereas it had no significant effect in patients without POAF.
