End of the Statin/Cancer Debate?

If you take a statin drug regularly, you may have had a nagging feeling that, while your cardiovascular risks are lessened, your chances of getting cancer have increased, slightly.  This would be due to a 2007 study from researchers at Tufts University showing an increase in cancer rates linked to the magnitude of the reduction in LDL-cholesterol (the ‘bad’ cholesterol) effected by statin therapy.  Since then there have been several publications suggesting that statins don’t cause cancer, but these haven’t received as much attention as the first study, so that some doubt remains in people’s minds.  A Medpage report on a large international study given at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Stockholm may set these minds at rest.

A meta-analysis was done of 25 randomized controlled clinical studies of statins.  A total of 166,000 patients were included in studies that ran for at least 5 years.  In 20 studies, a statin was compared to a placebo, and in the other 5 higher and lower doses of the statin were compared.  All the studies had at least 1,000 participants; individual data were available for every patient.

There were 9,954 cases of cancer that developed during the study periods.  In the 20 placebo-controlled studies, there were 3,514 cases of cancer with placebo, and 3,502 cases in a statin-treated group; the annual rate was 1.4% for each treatment.  Death resulted in 1,281 placebo-treated patients and in 1,289 in the statin-treated subjects – 0.5% a year for both groups.  Similar findings were found for the 5 studies comparing higher versus lower doses of a statin.

This meta-analysis shows there was no effect of statin treatment on cancer occurrence or mortality over at least 5 years’ treatment.  Not only do stains fail to  increase cancer, they don’t decrease it, despite some reports to the contrary.  All in all, it’s good news for statin-takers.