Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were reduced in all trials but there was evidence of heterogeneity of effects .
There was no evidence of any serious harm caused by statin prescription .
Evidence available to date showed that primary prevention with statins is likely to be cost-effective and may improve patient quality of life .
Recent findings from the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists study using individual patient data meta- analysis indicate that these benefits are similar in people at lower ( < 1 % per year ) risk of a major cardiovascular event .
AUTHORS ' CONCLUSIONS Reductions in all-cause mortality , major vascular events and revascularisations were found with no excess of adverse events among people without evidence of CVD treated with statins
BACKGROUND Reducing high blood cholesterol , a risk factor for cardiovascular disease ( CVD ) events in people with and without a past history of CVD is an important goal of pharmacotherapy .
Statins are the first-choice agents .
Previous review s of the effects of statins have highlighted their benefits in people with CVD .
The case for primary prevention was uncertain when the last version of this review was published ( 2011 ) and in light of new data an up date of this review is required .
OBJECTIVES To assess the effects , both harms and benefits , of statins in people with no history of CVD .
Semi-parametric risk prediction models for recurrent cardiovascular events in the LIPID study
Background Traditional methods for analyzing clinical and epidemiological cohort study data have been focused on the first occurrence of a health outcome . However , in many situations , recurrent event data are frequently observed . It is inefficient to use methods for the analysis of first events to analyse recurrent event data . Methods We applied several semi-parametric proportional hazards models to analyze the risk of recurrent myocardial infa rct ion ( MI ) events based on data from a very large r and omized placebo-controlled trial of cholesterol-lowering drug .  The backward selection procedure was used to select the significant risk factors in a model . The best fitting model was selected using the log-likelihood ratio test , Akaike Information and Bayesian Information Criteria . Results A total of 8557 persons were included in the LIPID study . Risk factors such as age , smoking status , total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels , qualifying event for the acute coronary syndrome , revascularization , history of stroke or diabetes , angina grade and treatment with pravastatin were significant for development of both first and subsequent MI events . No significant difference was found for the effects of these risk factors between the first and subsequent MI events . The significant risk factors selected in this study were the same as those selected by the parametric conditional frailty model . Estimates of the relative risks and 95 % confidence intervals were also similar between these two methods . Conclusions Our study shows the usefulness and convenience of the semi-parametric proportional hazards models for the analysis of recurrent event data , especially in estimation of regression coefficients and cumulative risks
Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were reduced in all trials but there was evidence of heterogeneity of effects .
There was no evidence of any serious harm caused by statin prescription .
Evidence available to date showed that primary prevention with statins is likely to be cost-effective and may improve patient quality of life .
Recent findings from the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists study using individual patient data meta- analysis indicate that these benefits are similar in people at lower ( < 1 % per year ) risk of a major cardiovascular event .
AUTHORS ' CONCLUSIONS Reductions in all-cause mortality , major vascular events and revascularisations were found with no excess of adverse events among people without evidence of CVD treated with statins
BACKGROUND Reducing high blood cholesterol , a risk factor for cardiovascular disease ( CVD ) events in people with and without a past history of CVD is an important goal of pharmacotherapy .
Statins are the first-choice agents .
Previous review s of the effects of statins have highlighted their benefits in people with CVD .
The case for primary prevention was uncertain when the last version of this review was published ( 2011 ) and in light of new data an up date of this review is required .
OBJECTIVES To assess the effects , both harms and benefits , of statins in people with no history of CVD .