Preoperative rosuvastatin protects patients with coronary artery disease undergoing noncardiac surgery.

OBJECTIVES

We explored whether preoperative rosuvastatin could protect the cardiac health of patients with coronary artery disease undergoing emergency, noncardiac surgery.

METHODS

We randomized 550 noncardiac emergency surgery patients with stable coronary artery disease on long-term statin therapy to treatment with and without preoperative rosuvastatin. All patients received rosuvastatin after surgery. We evaluated the incidence of myocardial necrosis and major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) 30 days and 6 months after surgery.

RESULTS

Creatinine kinase-myocardial band (CK-MB) isoform elevations occurred less frequently 12 and 24 h after noncardiac emergency surgery in the experimental group than in the control group (p = 0.029). After surgery, the incidence of MACCE was also lower in the experimental group than in the control group (p = 0.019). The difference was mainly due to the incidence of perioperative myocardial infarction (p = 0.029). Multivariable analysis found that rosuvastatin reload reduced the incidence of MACCE 52% 6 months after surgery (p = 0.03).

CONCLUSIONS

Preoperative rosuvastatin reload therapy decreases the incidence of myocardial necrosis and MACCE after noncardiac emergency surgery in patients with stable coronary artery disease on long-term statin therapy.