Statin therapy decreases cardiac sympathetic activity in patients with left ventricular dysfunction: a 123l‐MIBG myocardial scintigraphy study (1169.9)

Abstract

Convincing animal and human studies indicate that statin therapy decreases renal and muscle sympathetic nerve activity. Reduced cardiac sympathetic drive and innervation have also been reported as pleiotropic consequences of statin therapy in a rat coronary ligation model. This study then investigated whether these results could be translated to a clinical setting of human left ventricular dysfunction. Washout rate (WR) and heart‐to‐mediastinum (H/M) ratio, indexes of cardiac sympathetic activity and innervation density, were obtained from planar 123l‐metaiodobenzylguanidine myocardial scintigraphy images of patients undergoing long‐term statin [30±7 mg/day for at least a month] (7 men and 4 women, NYHA class II‐III, ejection fraction of 45±5%, age of 53±4, and body mass of 83±5 kg) and only standard drug therapy (7 men and 6 women, NYHA class II‐III, ejection fraction of 37±7%, age of 57±2 years, and body mass of 77±7 kg). Resting cardiovascular variables and lipid profiles were similar between groups. Statin users presented lower WR (Statin 29±2% vs. SDT 39±1, P<0.05) whereas early (1.7±0.2 vs. 1.6±0.2, P>0.05) and late (Statin 1.6±0.2 vs. SDT 1.6±0.4, P>0.05) H/M were similar for both groups. Our findings partially extend the results of animal studies and indicate that statin therapy reduces cardiac sympathetic activity in patients with left ventricular dysfunction without changing innervation density.Grant Funding Source: Supported by CAPES, CNPq, FAPERJ, FINEP.