The effect of statins on all-cause mortality in the general population has been estimated as 0. Reported values in HIV-infected individuals have been discordant. We assessed the impact of statin-based primary prevention on all-cause mortality among HIV-infected individuals.
Patients were selected among controls from a multicentre nested case-control study on the risk of myocardial infarction. Patients with prior cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disorders were not eligible.
During a median follow-up of 53 months, 76 deaths occurred, including 6 in statin users. Statin users had more cardiovascular risk factors and a lower CD4 T cell nadir than statin non-users. The confounders accounted for were age, HIV transmission group, current CD4 T cell count, haemoglobin level, body mass index, smoking status, anti-HCV antibodies positivity, HBs antigen positivity, diabetes and hypertension. In the Cox multivariable model the estimated hazard ratio of statin on all-cause mortality was estimated as 0.
The impact of statin for primary prevention appears similar in HIV-infected individuals and in the general population. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: Data are not owned by the authors. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Human immunodeficiency virus HIV infection induces chronic inflammation and immune activation, even during effective antiretroviral therapy ART [ 1 ]. Some markers of inflammation are associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes in both HIV-infected and uninfected populations [ 2 , 3 ].
