Time to Benefit of Statin Treatment for Primary Prevention of Adverse Cardiovascular Events

Preventive interventions should be offered only to patients whose life expectancy exceeds that of the intervention's time to benefit — if that time interval is known. In this meta-analysis, researchers determined the time to benefit after starting statins for preventing a first major adverse cardiovascular (CV) event in older adults.

Eight randomized trials that involved 65,000 adults were included. Mean age ranged from 55 to 69, and mean length of follow-up ranged from 2 to 6 years. Only one trial showed a mortality benefit for statin treatment. Benefits of statins increased steadily with longer follow-up: Treating 100 people with statins for 1, 3, and 5 years prevented 0.3, 1.3, and 2.5 adverse CV events, respectively. Overall, 100 adults …