Statins could improve short-term prognosis in patients with traumatic brain injury: a propensity-matched cohort study

To investigate whether the use of statins could improve the short-term prognosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients and explore the relationship between the initiation time and duration of post-traumatic statins treatment and short-term prognosis.

TBI patients in the MIMIC IV database were divided into a statin group and a control group. A comparison was made between them in terms of short-term prognosis, including ICU mortality, in-hospital mortality, 28-day mortality, and 90-day mortality. Three subgroup analyses were conducted in this study. Propensity score matching (PSM) method was employed to balance the baseline characteristics. Further stratification based on statin treatment initiation time and duration resulted in four groups.

A total of 1124 eligible TBI patients were included in this study. Before PSM, there were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of the four indexes. After PSM, the statin group showed significantly lower ICU mortality, in-hospital mortality, 28-day mortality, and 90-day mortality compared to the control group. Similarly, after conducting PSM for the three subgroup analyses, similar results were obtained for the GCS < 8 and age greater than 65 years subgroups. In the subgroup analysis of the cohort aged 65 years or under, there were no significant differences in the four metrics between the two groups. The analysis found no discernible correlation between the initiation time and duration of statin treatment and TBI patient prognosis.

Post-traumatic use of statins can improve the short-term prognosis of TBI patients. In comparison to patients aged ≤ 65 years, TBI patients aged > 65 years who use statin drugs experience significantly better short-term prognosis. The correlation between the initiation time and duration of statin treatment and the prognosis of TBI patients warrants further investigation.