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Statin use may lead to musculoskeletal conditions, injuries
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Patients assigned statins for at least 90 days were more likely to develop musculoskeletal conditions, injuries and related pain compared with those who did not use statins, according to findings in a new report.
For a retrospective cohort study, Ishak Mansi, MD, of the VA North Texas Health Care System, Dallas, and colleagues examined data from 46,249 patients in a military health care system and statin use during the 2005 fiscal year. Patients were divided into two groups based on medication fills: statin users for at least 90 days (n=6,967) and nonusers (n=6,967).
Musculoskeletal conditions (OR=1.19; 95% CI, 1.08-1.3), injury-related diseases such as dislocation, sprain and strain (OR=1.13; 95% CI, 1.05-1.21), and drug-associated musculoskeletal pain (OR=1.09; 95% CI, 1.02-1.18) were all more common among statin users when compared with similar nonusers. Statin users did not have a higher OR for arthropathies and related diseases (OR=1.07; 95% CI, 0.99-1.16).
“To our knowledge, this is the first study, using propensity score matching, to show that statin use is associated with an increased likelihood of diagnoses of musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies and injuries,” the researchers wrote.
“In our primary analysis, we did not find a statistically significant association between statin use and arthropathy; however, this association was statistically significant in all other analyses. These findings are concerning because starting statin therapy at a young age for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases has been widely advocated,” they wrote.
Disclosure: See the study for a list of the researchers’ relevant disclosures.
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