Statins and the risk of idiopathic venous thromboembolism

AIMS: To evaluate the association between current statin use and the risk of idiopathic venous thromboembolism (VTE). METHODS: A population-based retrospective follow-up with a nested case-control analysis using the General Practice Research Database. RESULTS: There were 72 cases of idiopathic VTE. Using normolipidaemic nonuse as the reference group, the adjusted relative risks for idiopathic VTE for current/recent statin use, past statin use, past other lipid-lowering drug use, and hyperlipidaemic nonuse were 0.8 (0.3, 2.7), 2.4 (0.6, 10.0), 1.8 (0.4, 7.4), and 0.9 (0.4, 2.0) in the follow-up analysis, and were 1.1 (0.3, 4.3), 3.7 (0.6, 24.1), 2.0 (0.3, 11.6), and 0.4 (0.2, 1.2) in the case-control analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Current statin use was not associated with a reduced risk of idiopathic VTE.