Renoprotective Effect of Preoperative Statins in Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

The renoprotective effect of preoperative statin use in coronary artery bypass grafting remains poorly defined. A retrospective review of 1,802 consecutive patients who underwent isolated coronary artery bypass grafting from January 2002 to October 2005 was performed. Of those, 1,039 patients were receiving statins preoperatively, and 763 patients were not. Two propensity score–matched cohorts each of 641 patients (statin and nonstatin groups) were constructed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses for matched patients and all patients were performed to investigate whether preoperative statin use was associated with the incidence of new renal insufficiency. In a matched analysis, the statin group had a lower incidence of new renal insufficiency than the nonstatin group (1.6% vs 3.9%, odds ratio 0.39, 95% confidential interval 0.18 to 0.82, p = 0.01). Multivariate logistic regression analysis including all patients also showed that preoperative statin use (odds ratio 0.54, 95% confidence interval 0.30 to 0.99, p = 0.047) was significantly associated with low incidence of new postoperative renal insufficiency. In conclusion, preoperative statin use may be renoprotective after coronary artery bypass grafting.