CURRENT PROGRAMME OF WORK

BACKGROUND

Large randomised trials, and meta-analyses of those trials,previously established that statin therapy rarely results in serious muscle problems known as myopathy and rhabdomyolysis (which are characterised by muscle symptoms in association with biochemical evidence of significant muscle damage) but the absolute excess risk of such complications is very small. In addition, such studies have previously shown that statins cause small absolute increases in the incidence of haemorrhagic stroke and of diabetes.

However, it has been suggested that statins may have additional adverse effects. To address these concerns, the CTT Collaboration has extended the CTT meta-analysis dataset to encompass all recorded adverse events for each of the participating trials to provide a more complete understanding of the nature and magnitude of any other effects (either adverse or beneficial) of statin therapy.

Ethics approval for the project was gained from the UK NHS Health Research Authority in March 2016.

The planned analyses were published in a pre-specified protocol in 2016. A methodology paper describing how the data from the included trials was harmonised into a single analysable dataset was published in 2022. Results to date from this programme of work can be found under the Findings tab.