4.2 Characteristic of the included studies
The study characteristics of the included fourteen studies25-38 are shown in Table 1 . All were randomized clinical trials and published from 2006 to 2021. The total number of individuals included in our meta-analysis was 2883, about half of whom were pretreated with statin before cardiac surgery. The trials were conducted in 9 different countries and four continents. We evaluated the potential role of statin pretreatment in preventing POAF.