WEDNESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with non-chronic kidney disease, high-potency statin treatment is associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for acute kidney injury, according to a study published online March 19 in the BMJ.
Colin R. Dormuth, Sc.D., from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and colleagues conducted a retrospective observational study of administrative databases to quantify the correlation between acute kidney injury and use of high- versus low-potency statins in a population of 2,067,639 patients aged 40 years or older and newly treated with statins. Ten controls were matched to each patient hospitalized with acute kidney injury.
The researchers found that within 120 days of current treatment, there were 4,691 hospitalizations among 2,008,008 patients with non-chronic kidney disease, and 1,896 hospitalizations for acute kidney disease among the 59,636 patients with chronic kidney disease. Current users of high-potency statins with non-chronic kidney disease were significantly more likely to be hospitalized with acute kidney injury within 120 days of starting treatment (fixed effect ratio, 1.34). The increase in admission rate was not significant for users of high-potency statins with chronic kidney disease. The correlation was robust across participating sites.
"The results of the current study indicate that clinicians should use low-potency statins whenever possible to provide cardiovascular benefits without the increased risk of acute kidney injury," the authors write.
Two authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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