• Michael W Donnino, Michael N Cocchi, Michael Howell, Peter Clardy, Daniel Talmor, Lauren Cataldo, Maureen Chase, Adel Al-Marshad, Long Ngo, and Nathan I Shapiro.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA. mdonnino@bidmc.harvard.edu
• Acad Emerg Med. 2009 Mar 1;16(3):230-4.

ObjectivesThe objective was to investigate the association between statin therapy and mortality in emergency department (ED) patients with suspected infection.MethodsA secondary analysis of a prospective, observational cohort study was conducted at an urban, academic ED with approximately 50,000 annual visits. Data were collected between December 2003 and September 2004. Inclusion criteria consisted of age > or = 18 years, clinical suspicion of infection, and hospital admission. Patients were divided by those receiving statin therapy and those not receiving statins while hospitalized. Medication data were collected from an inpatient pharmacy database. Comparisons were conducted with Fisher's exact test or Wilcoxon rank sum test. To adjust for baseline differences, multivariable logistic regression analysis controlling for gender, severity of illness (Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis [MEDS] score), Charlson Comorbidity Index, and duration of statin therapy was performed.ResultsOf 2,132 patients with suspected infection, 2,036 (95%) had interpretable pharmacy data and were analyzed. The cohort had a median age of 61 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 46-78 years) and a mortality of 3.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.1% to 4.8%). Patients who received statins (n = 474) had a lower unadjusted crude mortality (1.9%; 95% CI = 0.6% to 3.3%) compared to those who did not (4.5%; 95% CI = 3.4% to 5.4%; p ConclusionsPatients who were admitted to the hospital with infection and received statin therapy while hospitalized had a significantly lower in-hospital mortality compared to patients who did not receive a statin.

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