FRIDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- In peripheral arterial disease (PAD) patients, statin use is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality and all-cause mortality, though this association is not influenced by baseline C-reactive protein (CRP) or D-dimer levels, according to research published in the May 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
Himabindu Vidula, M.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues compared the presence and absence of elevated CRP and D-dimer levels in 579 patients with lower extremity PAD to determine the association between statin use and lower all-cause and CVD mortality.
The researchers found that, at baseline, 242 (42 percent) of the participants were taking a statin, and 129 (22 percent) died during the mean 3.7-year follow-up. Statin use was associated with lower all-cause mortality and lower CVD mortality (hazard ratios, 0.51 and 0.36, respectively), but no statistically significant interaction was found for baseline CRP or D-dimer levels and this association. A significant association between statin use and all-cause and total mortality existed only in patients whose baseline CRP values were greater than the median.
"Among those with PAD, statin use was associated with lower all-cause and CVD mortality compared to no statin use. The favorable association of statin use with mortality was not influenced significantly by the baseline CRP or D-dimer level," the authors conclude.
A co-author is a co-inventor on patents held by Brigham and Women's Hospital related to use of inflammatory markers in cardiovascular disease.
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