Daily Dose: Statin Treatment, Duration Linked to Reduced Risk of Hemorrhagic Stroke

Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On December 9, 2022, we reported on a study published in Neurology that examined the association between statin use and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) location.

The study

Researchers identified all first-ever cases of ICH between 2009 and 2018 in adults aged ≥55 years in the Southern Denmark Region. Data were included for 989 patients with lobar ICH (mean age 76.3 years, 52.2% women) who were matched with 39 500 controls for age, sex, and calendar year and 1175 patients with nonlobar ICH (mean age 75.1 years, 46.5% women) matched with 46 755 controls. Using a nationwide prescription registry, researchers obtained data on prior statin and other medication use which was then classified for recency, duration, and intensity. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using logistic regression analysis adjusted for potential confounding variables.

The results

The researchers found that current statin use was associated with a similarly reduced risk for both lobar ICH (aOR0.83; 95% CI, 0.70 to 0.98) and for nonlobar ICH (aOR 0.84; 95% CI 0.72 to 0.98). They also observed an association between longer duration of statin use and reduced risk for both lobar and nonlobar ICH.

Clinical implications

“Our findings regarding a lower risk of ICH in association with statin use and long-term therapy with statins are consistent with results of recent observational studies,” the authors write but add that their results did not support the original hypothesis that the benefit of statin therapy would be greater in reducing risk of nonlobar vs lobar ICH.

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