Novel anti-inflammatory effect of statins: reduction of CD4+CD28null T lymphocyte frequency in patients with unstable angina

Abstract

We studied 111 consecutive patients (mean (SD) age 64 (9) years; 32 women) admitted to our coronary care unit with Braunwald class IIIB unstable angina: 33 had been taking statins for at least four weeks plus standard anti-ischaemic treatment (group 1: mean age 62 (9) years; seven women); the remaining 78 patients were taking standard anti-ischaemic treatment but not statins before admission (group 2: mean (SD) age 65 (9) years; 25 women). Clinical features were recorded for both groups (table 1). All participants gave their informed consent. The ethics committee of the Catholic University of Rome approved the study.