Yoshinori Akimoto

Therapy with statins and aspirin enhances long-term outcome of percutaneous coronary intervention

Aspirin is the standard therapy applied after coronary intervention, and statins are also prescribed to prevent secondary coronary heart disease. We assessed the ability of a combination of statins and aspirin to improve the longterm prognosis of patients after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). We collected data from 575 consecutive patients who underwent PCI. The patients were divided into groups depending on the presence or absence of statin or aspirin therapy as follows: both statin and aspirin (Group B: n = 190; 33%); aspirin only (Group A: n = 236; 41.1%); statin only (Group S: n = 53; 9.2%S); neither drug (Group N: n = 96; 16.7%). Data were statistically assessed using the Cox proportional hazard model for multivariate analysis with adjustment of baseline convariates. Sixty-eight patients died during follow-up (11 ± 3 years). Multivariate analysis showed that compared with group N, both groups S and A were independent predictors for survival from all causes [group S: hazards ratio (HR) 0.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.10–0.81, P = 0.019; group A: HR 0.31, 95% CI 0.17–0.56, P < 0.0001] and cardiovascular (CV) death (group S: HR 0.16, 95% CI 0.04–0.73, P = 0.018; group A: HR 0.12, 95% CI 0.05–0.30, P < 0.001). risk for all causes and CV death was significantly lower in Group B (HR 0.25, 95% CI 0.12–0.53, P < 0.0001 and HR 0.10, 95% CI 0.03–0.31, P < 0.0001, respectively). Therapy with statins plus aspirin improves long-term clinical outcome in patients after PCI.