Association between Chronic Statin Use and 30-Day Mortality in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19

Yetmar, Zachary A.; Challener, Douglas W.; Tleyjeh, Imad M.; Sohail, M. Rizwan; Cerhan, James R.; Badley, Andrew D.; O’Horo, John C.

Objective To determine the association between chronic statin use and mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Patients and Methods We identified a retrospective cohort of patients requiring admission at the Mayo Clinic using our enterprise-wide COVID-19 registry from March 1st, 2020, through September 30th, 2020. Available information included age, gender, use of statins, medical comorbidities, and 30-day mortality. We estimated the association of statins with 30-day mortality using odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) from logistic regression modeling. Results 1295 patients between the ages of 30 and 80 tested positive for COVID-19 and required admission during the study period, of whom 500 (38.6%) were taking statins at admission. Patients taking statins were older and more likely to have diabetes mellitus or congestive heart failure. Within 30 days of diagnosis, 59 (4.6%) died. In multivariable analysis, statin users did not have statistically different odds of death within 30 days with OR of 1.14 (95% CI: 0.64-2.03, P=.67) compared to non-users. Conclusions Patients with COVID-19 taking statins had similar 30-day mortality to those not taking statins, after adjusting for relevant covariates. Although this is partly influenced by a higher prevalence of risk factors for more severe COVID-19 presentation not entirely adjusted for by the Charlson Comorbidity Index, these data would not support statins as a likely therapeutic intervention for COVID-19 in the hospital setting.