Statins Reduces Mortality by 22% to 25% in COVID-19 Patients

A study has found that people who are being treated with statins, a drug that helps to reduce cholesterol in the blood and thus prevent cardiovascular diseases, have a 22% to 25% lower risk of dying from COVID-19.

It is still not clear why some people who contract the novel coronavirus show no symptoms whereas others may die or suffer very severe consequences. Although age, illnesses and previous treatments can be used to give a prognosis in some cases, it is still not possible to state for certain how each case of coronavirus will evolve. One of the treatments that have been discussed in regard to their role in the evolution of COVID-19 has been statins.


In a new study, researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV Tarragona, Spain) and Pere Virgili Institut (IISPV Tarragona, Spain) collected information from 2,159 patients infected with SARS-COv-2 from 19 hospitals in Catalonia during the first wave of the pandemic from March to May. The team evaluated one hundred clinical variables per patient such as age, sex, previous illnesses, cholesterol levels, evolution of the virus, treatments used for COVID-19, and so on. The researchers then compared death rates of patients being treated with statins with death rates among those who were not and they also analyzed the effect of withdrawing statins when the patient was admitted to hospital.

The researchers found that the percentage of patients who died in the group not treated with statins was 25.4%, whereas it was 19.8% among those who were, that is 22% lower. Furthermore, if treatment with this medicine continued during hospitalization, mortality fell by up to 25%, thus preventing one in four deaths. Although the research was never intended to demonstrate that administering statins to COVID-19 patients would reduce the risk of death, it does open the way for studies that may confirm this finding.

“The data indicate that treatment with statins prevents one in five deaths,” said URV-IISPV researcher Lluís Masana who coordinated the study. “Not only do these findings demonstrate that treatment with statins has no negative on the evolution of COVID-19, they also show that it significantly reduces patient mortality.”

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Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Pere Virgili Institut