Background

Statins may be beneficial in treating acute lung injury (ALI) or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), but their application remains controversial.

Objectives

This meta-analysis of published studies investigated their potential benefit in ALI/ARDS treatment.

Methods

PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar and Cochrane databases were searched and all randomized controlled trials (RCT) and cohort studies with head-to-head comparison between statin and standard care were included.

Results

Three RCTs and six cohort studies were included. Overall, statins treatment had no significant effect on mortality compared with placebo (RCTs: OR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.72, 1.37; cohorts: OR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.71, 1.37). In addition, ventilator-free days were comparable between the two groups (RCTs: SMD = 0.08, 95% CI = -0.03, 0.19; cohorts: SMD = 0.06, 95% CI = -0.17, 0.29). The one-way sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability of results.

Conclusion

The results did not show that statins had effects on mortality and ventilator-free days among ALI/ARDS patients. However, this meta-analysis is limited by the number of RCTs included.