Dr. Daniel Clair is a practicing vascular surgeon from the Cleveland Clinic, who since 2006 served as Head of the Department of Vascular Surgery.

Dr. Clare is known in the US and Europe for his research in minimally invasive vascular surgery..

In 2007, Dr. Claire was rated America's Best Doctors.

In our article, Dr. Claire will talk about whether to take statins for aortic aneurysm and what is the role of statins in this disease..

If you suffer from coronary heart disease, then taking statins is definitely good for you.. In this case, statins significantly reduce the risk of coronary events in the future, and no one doubts this.

However, when it comes to treating aortic aneurysms, many patients do not understand why the doctor prescribes statins.

Frankly, the benefits of statins in this case have not been clearly proven in the course of adequate controlled studies.. Some scientists support statin therapy for aortic aneurysms, but much depends on other factors..

Immediately make a reservation that this question should be left to the discretion of your attending physician.

Some studies have revealed the following:.

• Statins with aortic aneurysm improve vascular endothelial function and reduce the level of inflammation in the aortic wall.

• Statins may slow aneurysm increase. Large population studies indicate that the rate of aneurysm increase in patients with statins is lower than in patients who do not take these drugs.

• Statins reduce the likelihood of a patient dying after surgery on an aortic aneurysm. Some small, single-center studies show that these patients die less often if they received statins before surgery..

The main thing is to reduce mortality.

Recently, researchers from Denmark analyzed a large group of patients with rupture of abdominal aortic aneurysm. For this, scientists used the Danish National Patient Register.

The authors concluded that the risk of rupture of an aortic aneurysm is lower in those patients who regularly take statins.. They also confirmed what we talked about above - if a person took statins before surgery, then his chances of surviving aneurysm surgery increase.

True, the Danish study has many shortcomings. They did not take into account the diameter of the aneurysm and did not monitor patient compliance (following the doctor's recommendations). Be that as it may, this work showed that statins will at least not harm people with aneurysm of the abdominal aorta.

If you have been diagnosed with aortic aneurysm, you should discuss all decisions with your doctor..

It makes sense to add statins to standard drugs.

In my opinion, in most cases this will be justified: it will reduce the growth rate of the aneurysm, reduce the risk of rupture and mortality.

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