Statin use in patients who have cancer is associated with lower cancer-related mortality, according to a study published on Nov. 7 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The authors note that previous studies have shown that "at the cellular level, statins have been linked to the halting of cell-cycle progression and to increased radiosensitization in cancer cells," and aimed to assess whether the start of statin use before a cancer diagnosis was associated with reduced cancer-related mortality.

Additional Resources Full Study Journal Scan

The study looked at 295,925 patients 40 years of age or older who had been diagnosed with cancer and observed reduced cancer-related mortality among statin users in comparison to those who never used statin in 13 cancer types. Results showed that multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios for statin users, compared to patients who had never used statins, were 0.85 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.83 to 0.87) for death from any cause and 0.85 (95 percent CI, 0.82 to 0.87) for death from cancer. The adjusted hazard ratios for death from any cause according to the defined daily dose per day, which is the assumed average maintenance dose per day, were 0.82 (95 percent CI, 0.81 to 0.85) for a dose of 0.01 to 0.75 defined daily dose per day, 0.87 (95 percent CI, 0.83 to 0.89) for 0.76 to 1.50 defined daily dose per day, and 0.87 (95 percent CI, 0.81 to 0.91) for higher than 1.50 defined daily dose per day. In contrast, the corresponding hazard ratios for death from cancer were 0.83 (95 percent CI, 0.81 to 0.86), 0.87 (95 percent CI, 0.83 to 0.91), and 0.87 (95 percent CI, 0.81 to 0.92).

The authors observed that statin use was associated with lower mortality, and that looking forward, "prospective evaluation of the hypothesis that statin use prolongs the survival of patients with cancer is needed."

< Back to Listings