Statin therapy appears to correlate with lower incidence and prevalence of atrial fibrillation in postmenopausal women with coronary disease, according to a presentation at Heart Rhythm 2008.

Atrial fibrillation affects over two million people in the United States alone. None of the current treatments is consistently successful and most have unfavorable side effects.

"Women and men are affected by atrial fibrillation differently," said the study's lead author Cara Pellegrini, MD, at the University of California, San Francisco. "Since past studies have shown benefits of statin therapy in the male population, we wanted to take a closer look at the effectiveness of statin therapy in women with regard to the risk of developing atrial fibrillation."

The study involved 2,673 postmenopausal women with prior coronary disease in the Heart and Estrogen-Progestin Replacement Study (HERS) to examine the association between statin use and prevalence and incidence of atrial fibrillation. After an average follow-up of 4.1 years and adjusting for age, race and other risk factors, prevalence was 65 percent lower and incidence was 55 percent lower in patients using statin therapy.