Chronic and regular use of statin prevents atrial fibrillation in period after cardiac surgery

BACKGROND: Atrial fibrillation is a common complication after cardiac surgery. The previous use of statins may reduce the incidence of this arrhythmia. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether the chronic and regular use of statins, for a period of six months, prevents atrial fibrillation after elective cardiac surgery. METHODS: A study carried out with 107 patients that underwent cardiac surgery, including 66% of males and their mean age was 60.4 years (25 to 84). We evaluated the presence of atrial fibrillation among patients that used statins or not on a regular basis in the preoperative period. We excluded patients with urgent heart surgery, kidney failure, inflammatory diseases, previous atrial fibrillation, patients with thyroid disease and those using a permanent pacemaker. RESULTS: In the postoperative period, atrial fibrillation was present in 42 patients (39%) of the sample, including 11 (26%) people that had used statins on a regular basis in the preoperative period and 31 (74%) who had not. It was possible to observe that, in 22% of the patients that were using statin, there was no development of atrial fibrillation, while 45% of those who did not take statin had arrhythmia (ρ = 0.02). In the isolated myocardial revascularization, 47% of the patients that did not take statin and 23% of those that took statin developed atrial fibrillation ( ρ = 0.02). There was no statistically significant difference in the analysis of groups with or without statin for the presence of risk factors for the development of atrial fibrillation (ρ = 0.34). CONCLUSION: The regular use of statin, for six months or more in the preoperative period, reduced the incidence of atrial fibrillation after elective cardiac surgery.