Statins Slow Liver Disease in HIV/HCV Patients

Having HIV puts patients co-infected with hepatitis C at far higher risk. A Baltimore team looked at using statins to slow the course of the liver disease. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and colleagues looked a cohort of these co-infected patients. Reporting at ID Week 2015, Nouf Almaghlouth, MBBS, MPH reported that of 230 patients in a cohort of 1,366 coinfected patients had similar degrees of cirrhosis but death was more common in non-users of statins (28%) than in patients taking statins (13%).They looked at data from 2001 through 2014.

Among patients without cirrhosis, liver disease progressed in 48% of those not taking statins but in only 15% of those taking statins.

"Although statin use was uncommon in our cohort, statins were associated significantly lower incidenceof liver disease," the authors wrote in an abstract. "Statins should be strongly considered in coinfected patients with indications for their use," they concluded.