Effectiveness of long-term using statins in COPD – a network meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of long-term treatment of statins for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and to answer which one is better. METHODS: General meta-analysis was performed to produce polled estimates of the effect of mortality, inflammatory factors, and lung function index in COPD patients by the search of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure for eligible studies. A network meta-analysis was performed to synthetically compare the effectiveness of using different statins in COPD patients. RESULTS: General meta-analysis showed that using statins reduced the risk of all-cause mortality, heart disease-related mortality and COPD acute exacerbation (AECOPD) in COPD patients, the RR (95% CI) were 0.72 (0.63,0.84), 0.72 (0.53,0.98) and 0.84 (0.79,0.89), respectively. And using statins reduced C-reactive protein (CRP) and pulmonary hypertension (PH) in COPD patients, the SMD (95% CI) were − 0.62 (− 0.52,-0.72) and − 0.71 (− 0.85,-0.57), respectively. Network meta-analysis showed that Fluvastatin (97.7%), Atorvastatin (68.0%) and Rosuvastatin (49.3%) had higher cumulative probability than other statins in reducing CRP in COPD patients. Fluvastatin (76.0%) and Atorvastatin (75.4%) had higher cumulative probability than other satins in reducing PH in COPD patients. CONCLUSIONS: Using statins can reduce the risk of mortality, the level of CRP and PH in COPD patients. In addition, Fluvastatin and Atorvastatin are more effective in reducing CRP and PH in COPD patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12931-019-0984-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.