Statins Linked to Lower Sepsis Mortality: Study Finds

A large cohort study published in Frontiers in Immunology has found that statins may significantly improve survival rates in critically ill patients with sepsis. The study, based on data from over 12,000 patients, reported a 39% lower death rate within 28 days among those treated with statins, raising potential for supplementary therapies in one of the most life-threatening conditions in intensive care.

Sepsis occurs when the body’s immune system responds to an infection with an overwhelming inflammatory reaction, leading to organ failure.

Standard treatment for sepsis includes antibiotics, intravenous fluids, and vasopressors to stabilize blood pressure. However, this new study, led by Dr. Caifeng Li of Tianjin Medical University General Hospital in China, suggests statins, widely used to lower cholesterol, may offer additional survival benefits.

The researchers used data from the MIMIC-IV database, which contains anonymized health records of 265,000 patients admitted to intensive care at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston between 2008 and 2019. They included adults hospitalized with sepsis for over 24 hours and applied a statistical technique called propensity score matching to minimize bias in treatment allocation. This yielded two matched groups of 6,070 patients each—those who received statins and those who did not.

The statin group had a 28-day all-cause mortality rate of 14.3%, compared to 23.4% in the non-statin group. However, statin-treated patients also showed slightly longer durations on mechanical ventilation and renal therapy, potentially indicating a tradeoff between survival and recovery time.

“These results strongly suggest that statins may provide a protective effect and improve clinical outcomes for patients with sepsis,” concluded Li. The findings were consistent across patients with normal, overweight, or obese BMI, though not among underweight individuals.

Reference: Li, C., Zhao, K., Ren, Q., Chen, L., Zhang, Y., Wang, G., & Xie, K. Statin use during Intensive Care Unit Stay Is Associated with Improved Clinical Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients with Sepsis: A Cohort Study. Frontiers in Immunology, 16, 1537172.