Statins cut cancer risk, too: U.S. study
- From: Jim Higgins <gordian238@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:54:58 -0500
Statins cut cancer risk, too: U.S. study
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=4104417
Reuters
CHICAGO
Statins -- those hard-working, cholesterol-fighting drugs -- may also cut the risk of developing cancer by as much as 25 percent, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Veterans taking statin drugs had a 9.4 percent cancer incidence, compared to 13.2 percent for non-statin users, the researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"Our findings support the hypothesis that statins may reduce the risk of cancer, in particular lung and colorectal cancers," said Dr. Wildon Farwell of the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, who led the study.
"The risk reduction appeared to be around 25 percent," Farwell said in a telephone interview.
Statins -- the world's top-selling drugs -- have been so effective at lowering low-density lipoprotein or LDL, the so-called "bad" cholesterol, that some doctors have jokingly suggested they should be added to the public water supply.
Not only do they significantly cut the risk of heart attack and stroke but they also may reduce the risk of death from influenza, pneumonia and smoking.
In labs, statins have been shown to slow the growth of cancer cells and they have often been studied as a cancer fighter, with mixed results.
For their study, Farwell and colleagues looked at the health records of nearly 63,000 veterans in the Veteran Affairs New England Healthcare System between January 1997 and December 2005.
The veterans were divided into groups that had used either statin drugs -- including Pfizer Inc.'s Lipitor and Merck & Co. Inc.'s Zocor, now sold generically, -- or blood-pressure lowering drugs for at least one year.
Farwell said they chose those groups because patients on both types of drugs have similar health risks and are likely to get about the same amount of access to the healthcare system.
After adjusting for age, prior cancer screenings, smoking, lung disease and other conditions, the researchers found statin users had a reduced risk of all cancer types compared with those not taking statins.
The researchers also looked at five of the most common types of cancers in the study group: prostate, lung, colorectal, bladder cancer and melanoma.
"We found significant risk reduction for prostate, lung and colorectal cancer," he said.
They also found that the higher the statin dose, the lower the incidence of cancer.
The study did not show why statins seemed to lower the risk of cancer. The study had a few limitations. Participants were mostly white males, which could skew results.
"We don't want to give the impression that this is the definitive study that proves statins reduce the risk of cancer," Farwell said.
But he said the findings are compelling enough to warrant further study.
Statistical Study Fails to Find Evidence That Statins Protect Against Cancer
http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/results/statins0106
Key Words
Cancer prevention, statins. (Definitions of many terms related to cancer can be found in the Cancer.gov Dictionary.)
Summary
Researchers analyzed data from multiple clinical trials in which thousands of patients took drugs called statins to reduce their risk of heart disease and found no evidence that the drugs reduced the risk of cancer. The analysis is not the final word on the subject, however, as evidence from other kinds of studies suggests that statins may offer some protection against cancer.
Source
Journal of the American Medical Association, January 4, 2006 (see the journal abstract).
(JAMA. 2006 Jan 4;295(1):74-80)
Background
Millions of Americans take statins to lower their cholesterol levels and their risk of heart diseases. These drugs work by blocking an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase, which the body needs to make cholesterol.
Animal studies and observation of people who take statins have suggested that these drugs might also reduce the risk of some cancers. Researchers have found that statins inhibit certain processes in cells that may help tumors to form, grow, and spread. Previous retrospective studies have suggested that statins might reduce the risk of cancers of the colon, breast, lung, and prostate.
The Study
Researchers searched the published medical literature for studies of statin use in which information on cancer diagnoses and deaths was also reported. They identified 26 randomized, controlled trials that enrolled at least 100 patients and followed the patients for at least one year.
Using a statistical technique known as meta-analysis, they pooled and summarized the information from these studies on cancer diagnoses and deaths. They evaluated the effect of all five statin drugs available in the United States on six types of cancer (breast, colon, and prostate cancer; respiratory and gastrointestinal cancers; and melanoma).
The study’s senior author is C. Michael White, Pharm.D., of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy in Storrs.
Results
The 26 clinical trials included in the meta-analysis enrolled more than 86,000 patients. They recorded more than 6,600 cancer diagnoses and more than 2,400 cancer deaths among those patients.
The researchers found no statistically significant differences in the number of cancer diagnoses or deaths between patients who were randomly assigned to take statins and those who were not. Their findings were the same for each of the six types of cancer they looked at.
Limitations
This study draws on data from clinical trials that were designed to determine statins’ effects on heart diseases, says the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Ernie Hawk, M.D., M.P.H. Because the drugs’ effects on cancer was not the trials’ primary focus, “they may have had limited ability to detect a difference in cancer incidence associated with statin use,” Hawk explains.
“In addition, because cancer often takes many years to develop, none of these trials may have followed patients for long enough to find an effect of statins on cancer incidence if such an effect exists,” he adds.
Comments
“This analysis does not support the premise that statins may prevent cancer, but neither does it prove the converse - that statins have no preventive effects on cancer,” says Hawk. “The question remains unresolved.”
An NCI-sponsored phase II trial that is about to get under way may shed more light on this question. This trial will enroll patients who are at increased risk for colorectal cancer and who are known to have clusters of abnormal cells in the lining of the colon and rectum. These abnormal cells are the earliest stage at which colorectal cancer risk is detectable with existing technology.
The trial will test three drugs - including the statin atorvastatin (Lipitor®) - to see whether they can effectively prevent these clusters of abnormal cells from progressing toward colorectal tumors. Paul Limburg, M.D., a researcher in gastroenterology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is the principal investigator for this multicenter study.
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