Clinical research
Effect of atorvastatin in patients with chronic heart failure – insights from randomized clinical trials

Introduction: Recent large clinical trials have yielded disappointing results of rosuvastatin in the chronic heart failure (CHF) population. The question that remains is whether these results of rosuvastatin studies could be extended to other statins. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis based on all currently available randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the clinical efficacy of atorvastatin in CHF patients.

Material and methods: The published literature was scanned by formal searches of electronic databases up to January 2010. RCTs were eligible for inclusion if they compared atorvastatin versus placebo treatment in patients with CHF and reported the clinical outcomes.

Results: Pre-specified criteria were met by 7 trials involving 540 patients. The primary endpoint, all-cause mortality, was significantly reduced with atorvastatin therapy compared with placebo in CHF patients (odds ratio [OR] 0.39, P = 0.002), with similar results in cardiovascular mortality (OR 0.28, P = 0.002) and sudden cardiac death (OR 0.24, P = 0.01). There was also a significant decrease in hospitalization for worsening CHF with atorvastatin therapy compared with placebo (OR 0.30, P < 0.001).

Conclusions: This meta-analysis suggests the effectiveness of atorvastatin treatment in reducing the risks of all-cause mortality and worsening CHF hospitalization in patients with CHF. Further large, well-conducted randomized trials are needed to confirm the benefits of atorvastatin or other statins for CHF relative to placebo or rosuvastatin.