TY - JOUR T1 - Response to: ‘Statins in systemic lupus erythematosus’ by Abud-Mendoza JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - e43 LP - e43 DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-212902 VL - 78 IS - 5 AU - Hilda J I de Jong AU - Tjeerd P van Staa AU - Jan Willem Cohen Tervaert Y1 - 2019/05/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/78/5/e43.abstract N2 - It was with great interest that we read the correspondence of Abud-Mendoza1 on our recent paper in which we described a decreased risk of developing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in statin users who continued their therapy for >1 year.2 We agree that prevention of cardiovascular disease in rheumatic diseases is of great importance.3 Whether statins decrease disease activity in SLE is, however, controversial since a recent meta-analysis of five controlled trials did not suggest any significant effect of statin therapy on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index.4 Unfortunately, in the UK’s Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)—an ongoing primary care database of anonymised medical records from general practitioners that was used in our study—no measurements for SLE activity before or after initiating statin therapy are available.2 We, however, do not think that statin … ER -