The incidence of atrial arrhythmia after thoracic, non-cardiac procedures is exceedingly common and has been reported to occur in between 10-39% of patients. It has been shown to increase majority morbidity and also delay hospital discharge. Recent studies suggest that one week of pre-operative atorvastatin may reduce the incidence of post-operative atrial arrhythmia in patients who undergo cardiac surgery and a multi-institutional study is currently underway to further examine this concept. However, there are no published prospective randomized studies to date that have evaluated the effectiveness of atorvastatin to reduce atrial arrhythmia in patients who undergo thoracic, non-cardiac operations such as esophagectomy or pulmonary resection. The object of this study is to determine if atorvastatin reduces the incidence of atrial arrhythmia (atrial fibrillation or flutter) following non-cardiac thoracic surgery, specifically pulmonary resections.
The purpose of this study is to determine if atorvastatin (Lipitor) reduces the occurence of abnormal heart rhythm (atrial arrhythmia) following non cardiac thoracic surgery.