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. 2021 Dec;9(6):e00861.
doi: 10.1002/prp2.861.

Statin withdrawal and treating COVID-19 patients

David S Fedson  1
Affiliations

Statin withdrawal and treating COVID-19 patients

David S Fedson. Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Most but not all observational studies of statin treatment of COVID-19 patients suggest that treatment improves outcomes. However, almost all of these studies fail to consider that withdrawing statins after hospital admission may have detrimental effects, a finding which cardiovascular investigators have known for 15-20 years. Continuing or starting statin treatment after hospital admission consistently improves cardiovascular outcomes. Similarly, inpatient statin treatment of COVID-19 improves survival. For this reason, observational studies of the effectiveness of outpatient-documented statin treatment of COVID-19 patients must consider the negative consequences of statin withdrawal after hospital admission.

Keywords: COVID-19; mortality; statin treatment; statin withdrawal.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Comment in

  • Did our pharmacological strategy for COVID-19 fail?
    Martin JH, Baddeley M, Head R. Martin JH, et al. Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2021 Dec;9(6):e00866. doi: 10.1002/prp2.866. Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2021. PMID: 34708568 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
  • The role of statin therapy in COVID-19.
    Daniels LB, Kumar K. Daniels LB, et al. Expert Rev Cardiovasc Ther. 2022 Jun;20(6):415-417. doi: 10.1080/14779072.2022.2081548. Epub 2022 May 30. Expert Rev Cardiovasc Ther. 2022. PMID: 35608055 No abstract available.

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