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Review
. 2022 Sep 5;11(17):5251.
doi: 10.3390/jcm11175251.

The Effects of Statin Treatment on Serum Ferritin Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Tannaz Jamialahmadi  1   2 , Mitra Abbasifard  3   4 , Željko Reiner  5 , Manfredi Rizzo  6 , Ali H Eid  7 , Amirhossein Sahebkar  8   9
Affiliations
Review

The Effects of Statin Treatment on Serum Ferritin Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Tannaz Jamialahmadi et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Background: Statins are the most widely used drugs for decreasing elevated serum LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) and thus for the prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), but they have also some pleiotropic effects, including anti-inflammatory properties. Atherosclerosis is a low-grade inflammatory disease, and elevated ferritin is considered to be one of the markers of inflammation. Since the results of studies on the effects of statins on serum ferritin levels are conflicting, this meta-analysis was performed.

Methods: A literature search was performed using major electronic databases (MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and ISI Web of Science) from inception up to 5 March 2022 to find studies evaluating the effect of different statins on serum ferritin levels. The effect size was determined using weighted mean differences (WMDs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results: The meta-analysis of nine studies (1611 patients) analyzing the effects of statins on serum ferritin levels that were included showed a significant decrease in circulating ferritin levels caused by statins. The results did not suggest any significant association between the changes in concentrations of serum ferritin and the duration of treatment with statins.

Conclusions: Statin therapy decreases the circulating concentrations of ferritin, which might be beneficial for the prevention and/or progression of ASCVD. This effect might be explained by the anti-inflammatory effects and maybe some other pleiotropic effects of statins and not by their lipid-lowering effects.

Keywords: acute-phase response; cardiovascular diseases; inflammation; iron; lipid-lowering therapy; statins.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of identified publications and those included into the meta-analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Forest plot displaying standardized mean differences and 95% confidence intervals showing the consequence of statin treatment on serum ferritin level. (B) Leave-one-out sensitivity analyses [26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Random-effects meta-regression for evaluating the effect of treatment duration.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Forest plot displaying standardized mean differences and 95% confidence intervals showing the consequence of statin treatment on serum hs_CRP level. (B) Leave-one-out sensitivity analyses [27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Funnel plot detailing publication bias in the publications describing the effect of statin treatment on serum ferritin level.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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