Statins may have renoprotective effects in patients with early-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD), new study findings suggest.
In a retrospective observational study involving 14,497 CKD patients, Eun Yeong Cho, MD, of Gachon University of Gil Medical Center, Incheon, Republic of Korea, and colleagues compared 1955 statin users and 12,542 non-users. They also propensity score-matched 858 statin users with 858 non-users. Statins had a significant beneficial effect on the doubling of serum creatinine and all-cause mortality, but only among patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 or higher. In these patients, statin use was associated with a 25.6% and 23.3% decreased likelihood of a doubling of serum creatinine in the unmatched and matched patients, respectively, the researchers reported in PLoS One 2017;12(1):e0170017.Statin use was associated with a significant 48.2% 54.3% decrease in all-cause mortality risk in the unmatched and matched cohorts, respectively.
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