March 21, 2013

High potency statins associated with increased rates of admission for acute kidney injury:

This retrospective review found that the use of high potency statins was associated with an increased risk of admission to the hospital for acute kidney injury. High potency statin treatment was defined as at least 10 mg rosuvastatin, 20 mg atorvastatin, or 40 mg simvastatin. All other statin treatments were defined as having low potency. COMMENT: although admission for kidney disease was elevated in this group, the authors did not look at relative morbidiy, e.g. how much were admissions for a heart attack or stroke changed? Also, people are high dose statins tend to have worse heart disease, which is associated with kidney disease. An interesting study, but certainly not the last word on this topic.

Keywords: kidney disease, statins, ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code N17.2