Statin use is associated with a reduced risk of colon cancer recurrence [ uri icon
Overview
abstract
  • Background: A significant body of data suggests that statin use reduces the risk of developing colon and other cancers, although other data have not confirmed these findings. Aims: To examine whether statin use helps prevent conducted a retrospective analysis of patients treated for stage I-III colon cancer in a large metropolitan health system. Incident cases of colon cancer between 1995, and the present were identified through the tumor registry of the health plan-owned hospital. All identified cases were then crosschecked against the HMO membership database. Data regarding statin use was pulled from the HMO outpatient pharmacy database. For each patient all available data from the 5-year window prior to first diagnosis of cancer until either recurrence or most recent data available was obtained. Demographic data and survival data from the tumor registry were then combined with pharmacy data regarding statin use in a single database for analysis. Recurrence and time to recurrent disease were compared in statin users and non-users. Results: A total of 358 colon cancer cases were available for analysis. Median follow-up of patients after diagnosis of colon cancer was 49 months. Eighty-nine patients (24.9%) used statin drugs for some period of time with a median of 780 days of use. Median age of all patients enrolled was 69 years (range, 24-95 yrs). Statin use was higher in patients ages 61-75 years (33%) than in those aged 24-60 years (22%) or those aged 76-95 years (19%) P=0.02). There was no association between statin use and stage at diagnosis. Only 6 of 89 patients (6.7%) with any statin use relapsed as opposed to 43 of 269 (16%) of patients with no statin use (Fisher’s exact, P=0.03). Kaplan-Meier analysis of relapse curves found a significant difference in relapse between groups with a 2-year recurrence rate of 3.7% among statin users and 10.1% among non-users (Log Rank, P=0.03, using age stratification). Conclusions: Statin use was associated with a decreased risk of recurrence in patients diagnosed with stages I-III colon cancer in this study. Further study of statin use in the prevention of colon cancer is warranted.

  • publication date
  • 2008
  • Research
    keywords
  • Colorectal Cancer
  • Drugs
  • Prevention
  • Risk Reduction