My patient is taking a statin and is scheduled for surgery

Overview

Statins rank among the most useful drug groups with convincing data from clinical trials, especially in patients at very high risk of developing or recurring cardiovascular events of atherosclerotic origin. As with all effective drugs, side effects are described also for statins, but these effects are rare. Nevertheless, because statins are used by many individuals for a long time periods, these effects could be observed. The main discussed ones include myopathy, hepatopathy, decreased renal function and higher incidence of diabetes mellitus. Another area of recent discussions is the possibility of untoward effects of statins during extensive surgical procedures, when it is considered their discontinuation.

However, the vast majority of available data demonstrated that statins are safe or even beneficial in terms of surgical procedures complications. Therefore, discontinuation of these drugs before surgery is not recommended in majority of individuals. Nevertheless, in certain risk groups statins could cause complications; these include patients with impaired renal function exposed to loading dose of statins before surgery. However, the presumption that the most serious complication of surgery might be unnecessary discontinuation of statins is still valid.

Keywords:

statins, side effects, surgery