Results

The final selected studies (n= 24 studies; 32,715 patients) showed significant reductions in ICU admission (OR= 0.78, 95% CI: 0.58–1.06; n= 10; I 2= 58.5%) and death (OR= 0.70, 95% CI: 0.55–0.88; n= 21; I 2= 82.5%) outcomes, with no significant effect on tracheal intubation (OR= 0.79; 95% CI: 0.57–1.11; n= 7; I 2= 89.0%). Furthermore, subgroup analysis suggested that death was reduced further by in-hospital application of stains (OR= 0.40, 95% CI: 0.22–0.73, n= 3; I 2= 82.5%), compared with pre-hospital use (OR= 0.77, 95% CI: 0.60–0.98, n= 18; I 2= 81.8%).

Conclusions

These findings call attention to the need for systematic clinical studies to assess both pre-and in-hospital use of statins as a potential means of reducing COVID-19 disease severity, particularly in terms of reduction of ICU admission and total mortality reduction.