Chronic use of statins and risk of post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

There is limited evidence on the role of chronic statin therapy in the prevention of acute pancreatitis after ERCP. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy of statins in the prophylaxis of post-ERCP pancreatitis.

Bibliographic search was performed through May 2020. The primary outcome was post-ERCP pancreatitis rate. An additional endpoint was the rate of severe pancreatitis.

Nine studies, of which 1 prospective and 8 retrospective series, with 9374 patients were included. Baseline clinical and technical features were well balanced between the two study groups. Overall, pooled rate of post-ERCP pancreatitis was 4.8% (3.2%-6.4%) in the statin group and 7.1% (5.9%-8.3%) in the control group, with no difference in terms of pancreatitis rate (odds ratio 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.43–1.02). This finding was confirmed in the multivariate analysis adjusted for several clinical and technical characteristics (adjusted odds ratio 0.68, 0.40–1.15). No difference was observed between the two study groups in terms of severe pancreatitis rate (odds ratio 1.07, 0.61–1.89).

Our meta-analysis seems to suggest the non-superiority of chronic statin therapy in preventing post-ERCP pancreatitis.