title: Does short preoperative statin therapy prevent infectious complications in adults undergoing cardiac or non-cardiac surgery? A meta-analysis of 5 randomized placebo-controlled trials.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effect of preoperative statin therapy on the incidence of postoperative infection.
  
  
  METHODS
  This systematic review of the literature was carried out in August 2015. Studies were retrieved via PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library (1980 to 2015), and the reference ﬁles were limited to English-language articles. We used a standardized protocol, and a meta-analysis was performed for data abstraction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five studies comprising 1,362 patients qualiﬁed for the analysis. The incidence of postoperative infections in the statin group (1.1%) was not significantly lower than that in the placebo group (2.4%), with a risk ratio (RR) of 0.56 (95% conﬁdence interval [CI] 0.24-1.33, p=0.19). Patients of 3 studies underwent cardiac surgery. The aggregated results of these studies failed to show significant differences in postoperative infection when a fixed effects model was used (RR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.08-1.97, p=0.26].
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We failed to ﬁnd sufficient evidence to support the association between statin use and postoperative infectious complications. The absence of any evidence for a beneficial effect in available randomized trials reduces the likelihood of a causal effect as reported in observational studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Affiliated Hospital of Binzhou Medical University, Binzhou, Shandong Province, China. E-mail. lihua2000_2004@126.com.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yuan-Long
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Shu-Ling
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Diao
authors.forename: Bao-Xin
authors.initials: BX
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xian-Liang
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D010919:Placebos; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000009:adverse effects*; D019616:Thoracic Surgical Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects*
chemical_list: D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors; D010919:Placebos