ESICM: Statin Therapy Doesn’t Cut Day-28 Mortality in VAP

No decrease in day-28 mortality for all patients, statin-naive with ventilator-associated pneumonia

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 9 (HealthDay News) — For patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), statin treatment does not decrease day-28 mortality, according to a study published online Oct. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association to coincide with presentation at the annual meeting of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, held from Oct. 5 to 9 in Paris.

Laurent Papazian, M.D., Ph.D., from Hôpital Nord in Marseille, France, and colleagues conducted a randomized multicenter trial involving patients with VAP to examine the impact of statin therapy on day-28 mortality. Participants were randomized to 60 mg simvastatin or placebo starting on the same day as antibiotic therapy.

At the first scheduled interim analysis after enrollment of 300 patients, the study was stopped due to futility. The researchers found that day-28 mortality was not significantly lower in the simvastatin group versus the placebo group (21.2 versus 15.2 percent; P = 0.10). Day-28 mortality was 21.5 percent for statin-naive patients treated with simvastatin versus 13.8 percent for statin-naive placebo-treated patients (P = 0.054).

“In adults with suspected VAP, adjunctive simvastatin therapy compared with placebo did not improve day-28 survival,” the authors write. “These findings do not support the use of statins with the goal of improving VAP outcomes.”

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical and health care industries.

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