Statin Use Fails To Prevent Progression to Lethal Prostate Cancer

Statin use following diagnosis of localized prostate cancer (PCa) does not lower the risk of dying from the malignancy, according to researchers.

June M. Chan, ScD, of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues studied 3,949 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were diagnosed with localized PCa from 1992 to 2008. Of these, 685 were using statins at the time of PCa diagnosis.

The researchers observed 242 cases of lethal PCa (metastases or PCa-related death). They found no statistically significant association between post-diagnosis current use of statins or duration of statin use and lethal PCa, Dr. Chan's group reported online ahead of print in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The investigators concluded that, in contrast to early findings of an inverse relationship between pre-diagnosis statin use and PCa outcomes, the results of the current study “provide little support for the hypothesis that statin usage after diagnosis of localized prostate cancer offers benefit against progression to lethal disease.”

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