Statins May Reduce the Risk of Acquiring Serious Bloodstream Infection

Statin use was associated with a decreased risk for community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (CA-SAB), according to a recent study.

For their research, the authors identified 2638 individuals with CA-SAB and 26,379 age- and sex-matched controls living in Northern Denmark using population-based medical registries. They categorized individuals based on statin use as current users (new or long-term), former users, and nonusers. Logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratio (OR) for CA-SAB related to statin use, intensity, and duration.
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Overall, the researchers found that current statin users had a decreased risk of CA-SAB compared with non-users (adjusted OR 0.73). The adjusted ORs were 0.96, 0.71, and 1.12 for new users, long-term users, and former users, respectively, compared with nonusers.

In addition, increases in statin intensity were associated with decreases in the risk of CA-SAB. The adjusted OR was 0.84 for current users receiving less than 20 mg a day, 0.72 for those receiving between 20 and 39 mg a day, and 0.63 for those receiving 40 mg a day or more.

However, there were no differences in the risk of CA-SAB and increases in the duration of statin use.

“Statin use was associated with a decreased risk of CA-SAB, particularly in long-term users,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Smit J, López-Cortés LE, Thomsen RW, et al. Statin use and risk of community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia: a population-based case-control study. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92;10: 1469-1478. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2017.07.008.