Statins tied to few hospital visits for asthma

The use of statins was associated with 33% reduction in the risk of emergency department visits and hospitalizations among adult asthma patients in a retrospective study.

Statin use during the previous 12 months was independently associated with a significant 33% relative risk reduction for recurrent asthma-related ED/hospitalization events over 12 months, reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

A researcher at Medco Health Solutions Inc., and his colleagues used data from the Medco National Integrated Database, which includes more than 12 million individuals. Adult patients were included if they had received index inhaled corticosteroid therapy between January to December 2006, and had at least one ED/hospitalization visit for asthma in the 12 months prior to the index steroid prescription.

The study included 6,574 patients, of whom 2,103 had received concomitant statin therapy.

In a univariate analysis, the incidence of ED/hospitalization events was 29.4% in statin-unexposed patients and 20.5% in statin-exposed patients (odds ratio 0.62). The odds ratio 0.67 in a multivariate analysis that adjusted for age, sex, previous asthma events, and asthma therapy. Both differences were significant.

The findings support the hypothesis that “statins may improve clinical outcomes in adults with asthma, and provide a good basis for additional prospective investigation.”