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Statin drugs not only lower blood lipid levels but also provide potentially beneficial immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects. In this cohort study, U.K. investigators used a primary care database to assess whether statins protect against all-cause mortality within 6 months after diagnosis of pneumonia.
About 130,000 patients who received statins between 1995 and 2006 were each matched with as many as 5 non–statin users. A statistical method based on propensity scores was used to control for differences between statin users and nonusers. More than 9000 patients developed pneumonia, but only statin users (942 patients) and nonusers (3615 patients) with comparable propensity scores were included in the analysis. Within 6 months of pneu…