Women benefit as much as men from secondary prevention effects of statins, despite lower representation in trials

摘要

The use of statins in women has always been more controversial than in men. Most of the major statin trials have recruited more men than women, and there have been conflicting results on the secondary (if not primary) prevention benefits for women with cardiovascular disease. Nevertheless, a recent guideline from the American Heart Association has recommended statin therapy to achieve the same cholesterol targets in women as in men. Now a substantial meta-analysis of 11 placebo-controlled clinical trials with more than 40,000 participants also suggests that women have as much to gain from statin therapy in the prevention of recurrent cardiovascular events as men. The analysis showed that overall statin therapy was associated with a similarly reduced risk of cardiovascular events for women (Relative risk (RR), 0.81) as for men (RR, 0.82). The authors thus concluded that 'this meta-analysis supports the use of statins in women for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular events'.