Abstract
We aimed to investigate whether statin therapy is associated with the incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among the South Korean population. In addition, we examined whether statin therapy affects hospital mortality among COVID-19 patients. The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS)-COVID-19 database in South Korea was used for data extraction for this population-based cohort study. A total of 122,040 adult individuals, with 22,633 (18.5%) in the statin therapy group and 101,697 (91.5%) in the control group, were included in the analysis. Among them, 7780 (6.4%) individuals were diagnosed with COVID-19 and hospital mortality occurred in 251 (3.2%) COVID-19 cases. After propensity score matching, logistic regression analysis showed that the odds of developing COVID-19 were 35% lower in the statin therapy group than in the control group (odds ratio: 0.65, 95% confidence interval: 0.60 to 0.71; p < 0.001). Regarding hospital mortality among COVID-19 patients, the multivariable model indicated that there were no differences between the statin therapy and control groups (odds ratio: 0.74, 95% confidence interval: 0.52 to 1.05; p = 0.094). Statin therapy may have potential benefits for the prevention of COVID-19 in South Korea. However, we found that statin therapy does not affect the hospital mortality of patients who are diagnosed with COVID-19.
Highlights
On 31 December 2019, 27 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) with pneumonia of unknown etiology were first reported in Wuhan city, Hubei, China [1]
We investigated whether statin therapy is associated with the incidence of COVID-19 among the general South Korean population and examined whether statin therapy affects hospital mortality among COVID-19 patients
Our results show that statin therapy is associated with a lower risk of COVID-19 among the South Korean population
Summary
On 31 December 2019, 27 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) with pneumonia of unknown etiology were first reported in Wuhan city, Hubei, China [1]. More than 1 billion people are estimated to take statins globally [8] In addition to their lipid-lowering activity, statins are known to modulate immune responses in several mechanisms, including immune cell adhesion and migration, cytokine production, and antigen presentation [9]. This is known as the “pleiotropic effect” of statins [10]. COVID19 causes severe respiratory symptoms by triggering an inflammatory host response, and some immunomodulatory therapies have been reported as supportive therapies in the treatment of COVID-19 [13]. Robust information regarding this finding is still lacking, and the effect of statin therapy on the prevention of COVID-19 has not yet been identified
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