Myonecrosis, manifested by an increase in cardiac markers, may occur in up to 50% of patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The degree of periprocedural myonecrosis, measured by the peak creatine kinase-MB fraction, has been associated with incidence of adverse clinical outcomes. Therefore, strategies to decrease myonecrosis may translate into a decrease in mortality. We evaluated the efficacy of statin pretreatment in decreasing the incidence of myonecrosis after PCI on the basis of results of published studies. A systematic search of the PubMed database from its inception to October 2006 and from the references of identified studies was performed. Only studies with concurrent control groups were included. Information on baseline characteristics of included patients and clinical outcomes was independently extracted by 2 investigators. A random effects model was used to pool odds ratios of the incidence of periprocedural myonecrosis in statin-treated patients versus controls. A total of 9 trials was included in the analysis, 2 randomized trials (n = 604) and 7 retrospective cohort studies (n = 4,751), which assessed the impact of statin pretreatment on periprocedural myonecrosis. During this period, 196 of 2,149 patients (9%) in the statin-treated group compared with 455 of 2,602 (17.5%) in the control group (odds ratio 0.45, 95% confidence interval 0.33 to 0.62, p <0.01) developed myonecrosis. In conclusion, based on existing evidence, routine pretreatment with statins may decrease the risk of postprocedure myonecrosis. Large randomized controlled trials addressing the dose, duration, and type of statin on periprocedural myonecrosis are necessary before recommending routine use of statins to prevent myonecrosis in the elective PCI setting.
