Lung cancer patients who used statins in the year prior to a lung cancer diagnosis or after a lung cancer diagnosis had a reduction in the risk of death from the disease.
READ FULL ARTICLE
From Medical Express
Statin use before, after lung cancer diagnosis may reduce risk of cancer-related death
the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:
According to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers have found that patients with lung cancer who used statins in the year prior to cancer diagnosis or following a cancer diagnosis had a decreased risk for cancer-related death.
Specifically, among those who had at least 12 prescriptions for statins had a 19% reduction in lung cancer-specific death, which was statistically significant.
In addition, those who used statins in the year leading up to cancer diagnosis had a 12% reduced risk in cancer-related deaths. That figure was also statistically significant.
"Our study provides some evidence that lung cancer patients who used statins had a reduction in the risk of death from lung cancer. The magnitude of the association was relatively small and, as with all observational studies, there is the possibility of confounding—meaning that simvastatin [a type of statin] users may have differed from simvastatin nonusers in other ways that could have protected them from death from cancer, for which we could not correct," said Chris Cardwell, PhD, a senior lecturer in medical statistics at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
