Stopping Cholesterol-Lowering Statins Before Non-Cardiac Surgery Is Unnecessary And May Increase The Risk of Death Following The Operation

U.S. News & World Report Healthday reports on research at UCSF showing that stopping cholesterol-lowering statins before non-cardiac surgery is unnecessary and may increase the risk of death after surgery.

Stopping cholesterol-lowering statins before non-cardiac surgery is unnecessary and may increase the risk of death following the operation, researchers report.

In their study, doctors from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), found that although the practice of stopping statins before an operation is no longer recommended, many patients are still being told to do so.

Moreover, patients who stopped taking statins before surgery or who didn't start them again within two days after surgery had a 40 percent increased risk of dying within 30 days, the investigators found. ......

The UCSF team, led by Dr. Susan Lee, a clinical instructor in the department of anesthesia and perioperative care, collected data on about 300,000 patients who had been taking statins before non-cardiac surgery between 2000 and 2014.

The study authors found that more than 98,000 patients had not resumed taking statins in the two days after their operation. However, the percentage of patients who did not resume taking statins within two days of surgery dropped over the study period. From 2000 to 2002, 46 percent of patients had not resumed their statins in the two days after surgery. From 2012 to 2014, only 24 percent hadn't resumed taking statins by the second day.

Lee and her colleagues then looked at death rates in the 30 days after surgery. They found that the death rate was 2.6 percent among those who did not resume taking their statins in the two days after surgery -- 40 percent higher than those who quickly resumed or never stopped taking their statins.