Statin and Postcardiac Surgery Atrial Fibrillation Prevention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is a frequently reported postcardiac surgery complication leading to increased in-hospital and long-term mortality rates. Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have recently suggested using statins to protect against POAF. Therefore, we performed a systematic literature search and meta-analysis in electronic databases for eligible studies published between January 2006 and January 2022. The principal inclusion criteria were as follows: RCTs' study design, statin-naive patients, total study participants ≥50 units, and statin pretreatment started no more than 21 days before cardiac surgery. In the primary analysis, statin pretreatment reduced the incidence of POAF compared with placebo. Analyzing different molecules, atorvastatin was associated with lower incidence of POAF but rosuvastatin was not. We therefore performed a sensitivity analysis excluding RCTs affected by important risk of biases. Thus, studies whose participants were ≥199 were those eligible for the secondary analysis. No statistically significant difference between statin pretreatment and placebo (OR 0.87; 95% CI: 0.71–1.07, P = 0.18) as well as for atorvastatin (OR 0.88; 95% CI: 0.61–1.28; P = 0.48; I 2 = 84%) and rosuvastatin (OR 0.87; 95% CI: 0.68–1.12, P = 0.29) was observed. To conclude, statin pretreatment before cardiac surgery is not associated with a significant reduction in POAF occurrence.