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We read with interest the recent multicentre randomised controlled trial by Guilabert et al.1 The authors tested the efficacy of simvastatin or placebo in patients with recurrent acute pancreatitis (RAP) and chronic pancreatitis (CP) in reducing the recurrence of pancreatitis. Statins have pleiotropic anti-inflammatory properties. Backed with robust observational data of a lower probability of having pancreatitis with simvastatin (adjusted risk ratio 0.626, 95% CI 0.588 to 0.668) in 4 million people by Wu et al, the drug held a firm promise to deliver in the simvastatin for the prevention of recurrent pancreatitis (SIMBA) trial.2–4 However, the trial was terminated after the first interim analysis because there was no significant difference in the recurrence of pancreatitis between the groups, both in intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses (46.2% vs 44.4% and 35.5% and 41.9%, respectively). We believe that a few comments are warranted to put the results of the SIMBA trial in perspective.