Giving people statins before an operation could cut their risk of dying or suffering complications, research suggests.
The cholesterol-busting drugs are normally only prescribed for patients with heart conditions or who are at risk of heart attacks or stroke.
But a new study suggests that administering statins to people undergoing operations unrelated to their heart may have a powerful effect.
The research on more than 6,000 people found that giving statins before operations cut the chance of cardiovascular complications by 17%.
Statins were also linked to a 43% lower chance of dying from any cause and a 52% reduced risk of dying from a heart-related problem within 30 days of the operation.
The study, which involved patients from eight different countries, was presented at the European Society of Cardiology conference in London.
Dr Philip Devereux, from McMaster University in Canada, said: "Among the 200 million adults worldwide who undergo non-cardiac surgery annually, more than ten million will suffer a cardiovascular complication in the first 30 days after surgery.
"Despite the magnitude of the problem, no intervention has been shown to be both safe and effective in the prevention of cardiovascular complications such as heart attack, death due to cardiac causes and stroke.
"Our finding of reduced major cardiac complications and all-cause mortality after non-cardiac surgery in patients taking statins suggests that there may be a new indication for this drug."
Dr Devereux said more work was needed and the findings did not add up to a formal recommendation to prescribe statins before surgery.
The new research looked at people given statins before all types of surgery unrelated to the heart.
In total, researchers evaluated 15,478 patients aged over 45 who had non-cardiac surgery in eight countries between 2007 and 2011.
Two groups of "matched" patients were then selected, with 2,845 patients on statins and 4,492 who were not.
Seven million people in the UK are currently prescribed statins, but experts say many more could benefit.
The healthcare watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), has said statins should be given to more patients because their cost has fallen and their effectiveness is well proven.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel