Introduction: Tuberculosis, a chronic infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), is one of the 10 leading causes of death in the world. The current treatment is a combination antimicrobial therapy administered for 6-9 months. It is important to find therapeutic strategy to shorten the treatment during and strengthen the host immune response against MTB.Areas covered: There is evidence that MTB uses cholesterol in the host macrophage to infect and survive inside the host macrophage. Statins inhibit the synthesis of cholesterol and aid in reducing the levels of cholesterol in human, which have been associated with better outcome in infectious diseases. In this narrative review, we discuss recent studies that investigated the effects of statins on the prevention or treatment of TB infection.Expert opinion: The evaluation of the published evidence suggests that statins may be beneficial in the treatment of patients with TB infections. Future studies may focus not only on the beneficial effects of statins, but also on distinguishing the effects of different statins.
Keywords: HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; diabetes mellitus; metformin; pneumonia; statin; tuberculosis.