Conference Coverage
Statins don’t help, may harm in COPD, sepsis-associated ARDS
Key clinical point: Statins did not help, and possibly harmed, patients with moderate to severe COPD or sepsis-associated acute respiratory...
SAN DIEGO – The failure of statins in the STATCOPE trial to prevent exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease isn’t the only important message of the trial, Dr. Gerard J. Criner said in an interview after he presented the findings at an international conference of the American Thoracic Society.
Previous observational studies of statins in COPD that suggested survival benefits from the drugs probably didn’t screen out patients with indications for statin therapy, as STATCOPE (Statins in COPD Exacerbations) did, for a more pristine assessment, said Dr. Criner, professor of medicine and director of the medical intensive care unit and the ventilator rehabilitation unit at Temple University, Philadelphia. The real message may be that clinicians are missing patients who need statins but aren’t getting them, he suggested.
Dr. Criner also shared his take on other important statin trials presented at the meeting. Take a look.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded the STATCOPE trial. The investigators reported financial associations with dozens of companies, including five of Dr. Criner’s coinvestigators who had financial associations with Merck, which makes a brand name formulation of simvastatin.
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