BackgroundThis trial aimed to assess the efficacy of Atorvastatin reloading on the prevention of Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) in patients pre-treated with this statin and undergoing coronary catheterization.MethodsThis was a prospective randomized controlled study including patients on chronic atorvastatin therapy. We randomly assigned the population to the Atorvastatin Reloading group (AR group), by reloading patients with 80 mg of atorvastatin one day before and three days after the coronary procedure, and the Non-Reloading group (NR group), including patients who received their usual dose without a reloading dose. The primary endpoints were the incidence of cystatin (Cys)-based CIN and Creatinine (Scr)-based CIN. The secondary endpoints consisted of the changes in renal biomarkers (Δ biomarkers) defined as the difference between the follow-up level and the baseline level.ResultsOur population was assigned to the AR group (n = 56 patients) and NR group (n = 54 patients). The baseline characteristics of the 2 groups were similar. Serum creatinine (SCr)-based CIN occurred in 11.1% in the NR group, and in 8.9% in the AR group without any significant difference. Cys-based CIN occurred in 37% in the NR group and 26.8% in the AR group without any significant difference. The subgroup analysis showed that high dose reloading had significantly reduced the CYC-based CIN risk in patients with type 2 diabetes (43.5% vs 18.8%, RR = 0.43. CI 95% [0.18–0.99])). The comparison of “Δ Cystatin” and Δ eGFR between the AR and NR groups didn’t show any significant difference. However, cystatin C had significantly increased between baseline and at 24 hours in the NR group (0.96 vs 1.05, p = 0.001), but not in the AR group (0.94 vs 1.03, p = 0.206).ConclusionsOur study did not find a benefit of systematic atorvastatin reloading in patients on chronic atorvastatin therapy in preventing CIN. However, it suggested that this strategy could reduce the risk of CyC-based CIN in diabetic type 2 patients.