By Jordana Bieze Foster
Statin use may be protective against diabetic foot infection, according to research from Iran published in the July issue of Wounds.
Investigators from the Semnan University of Medical Sciences assessed statin use in 110 patients with a history of diabetic foot infections and 123 patients with diabetes mellitus but no history of diabetic foot infection.
The percentage of patients with a history of atorvastatin use was significantly higher in the infection-free group than in the group with a history of infection (66.7% vs 49.1%). After adjusting for potential confounders, the odds ratio (OR) for diabetic foot infection in patients with a history of atorvastatin use was calculated to be .36.
Compared with nonstatin users, statin users had lower rates of severe foot infection, bone involvement, and need for surgical intervention, but the between-group differences for those outcome measures were not statistically significant.
Cigarette smokers and individuals with a longer duration of diabetes were also more likely to have a diabetic foot infection than nonsmokers and those with a shorter disease duration (OR = 5.36 and 1.13, respectively).
Source:
Nassaji M, Ghorbani R, Shkofte HS. Previous atorvastatin treatment and risk of diabetic foot infection in adult patients: A case-control study. Wounds 2017; 29(7):196-201.
