Background: Statin therapy in women without cardiovascular disease (CVD) is controversial, given the insufficient evidence of benefit. We analyzed sex-specific outcomes in the Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: An Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin (JUPITER) and synthesized the results with prior trials.
Methods and results: JUPITER participants included 6801 women > or =60 years of age and 11 001 men > or =50 years of age with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein > or =2 mg/L and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol <130 mg/dL randomized to rosuvastatin versus placebo. Meta-analysis studies were randomized placebo-controlled statin trials with predominantly or exclusively primary prevention in women and sex-specific outcomes (20 147 women; >276 CVD events; mean age, 63 to 69 years). Absolute CVD rates (per 100 person-years) in JUPITER women for rosuvastatin and placebo (0.57 and 1.04, respectively) were lower than for men (0.88 and 1.54, respectively), with similar relative risk reduction in women (hazard ratio, 0.54; 95% confidence interval, 0.37 to 0.80; P=0.002) and men (hazard ratio, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.45 to 0.73; P<0.001). In women, there was significant reduction in revascularization/unstable angina and nonsignificant reductions in other components of the primary end point. Meta-analysis of 13 154 women (240 CVD events; 216 total deaths) from exclusively primary prevention trials found a significant reduction in primary CVD events with statins by a third (relative risk, 0.63; 95% confidence interval, 0.49 to 0.82; P<0.001; P for heterogeneity=0.56) with a smaller nonsignificant effect on total mortality (relative risk, 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.53 to 1.15; P=0.21; P for heterogeneity=0.20). Similar results were obtained for trials that were predominantly but not exclusively primary prevention.
Conclusions: JUPITER demonstrated that in primary prevention rosuvastatin reduced CVD events in women with a relative risk reduction similar to that in men, a finding supported by meta-analysis of primary prevention statin trials. Clinical Trial Registration- URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00239681.