Importantly, not all studies identified a protective effect for statins against CAP [7–9]. For example a recent 2011 study by Yende et al., which BI-D1870 research buy accounted for healthy user effect and indication bias using propensity analysis, found no evidence for a protective effect in 1895 subjects hospitalized PF 2341066 for CAP across 28 U.S. hospitals [9]. Likewise, in a study of 3415 individuals

admitted to a hospital with pneumonia, Majundar et al. found that prior statin use had no effect on mortality or need for admission to an ICU [8]. Finally, de Saint Martin et al. found that statins users had higher ICU admission rates than non-users, albeit no differences in length of hospital stay or mortality were observed [7]. The authors of these studies suggest that the protective effects reported for statins may be due to confounders, a healthy user effect, and/or indication bias. As results from randomized control trials are not yet published, direct evidence of whether statins confer protection against CAP remains controversial. Studies investigating the effects of statins on bacterial infections using laboratory animals have yielded conflicting results and added to the

uncertainty. In a mouse model of Klebsiella pneumoniae pneumonia, lovastatin administration resulted in increased bacterial outgrowth that the authors attributed to reduced neutrophil accumulation within the lungs and defects in neutrophil-dependent intracellular killing [10]. For Staphylococcus aureus, high-dose VRT752271 statin therapy was shown to enhance the production of antimicrobial extracellular DNA traps by phagocytes within the lungs of mice and to protect against disseminated infection [11, 12]. We have recently shown that short-term simvastatin therapy reduced the severity of pneumococcal disease in mice with sickle-cell disease but had no protective effect on young wild type mice [13]. Statin-mediated protection in the sickle-cell animals Immune system was due to: 1) reduced levels of

Platelet-activating factor receptor, a host-protein that Streptococcus pneumoniae co-opts to adhere and invade host cells, and 2) reduced cytotoxicity of pneumolysin, a cholesterol dependent pore-forming toxin produced by S. pneumoniae. Of note, for all the animal studies described above, statins were either administered through a non-oral route, on a short-term basis, or at doses that far exceed what would normally be administered to humans for cardiovascular disease. Thus the mechanisms that might protect humans against pneumonia following oral statin therapy remain in question. Given the large number of individuals at risk for pneumonia, it is important to determine whether prolonged oral statin therapy confers protection against pneumonia and if so the mechanisms that are responsible. For this reason we examined the effect of 4-week enteric-delivered simvastatin on the progression and severity of pneumococcal pneumonia in mice.