A study conducted by researchers in Ireland showed a reduction in lung-cancer specific deaths following the prolonged use of statins.
Researchers investigated whether lung cancer patients who received statins had improved cancer outcomes. The researchers used data from almost 14,000 patients who were newly diagnosed with lung cancer between 1998 and 2009 in the English cancer registry.
The researchers gathered the patients’ prescription records from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink and mortality data up to 2012 from the Office of National Statistics. The research team noted that among patients who survived at least 6 months after a diagnosis, those who used statins after a lung cancer diagnosis had a statistically non-significant 11% reduction in lung cancer-specific deaths, according to a Science 2.0 news report.
In addition, among the patients who used at least 12 prescriptions of statins, there was a statistically significant 19% reduction in lung cancer-specific deaths, while among those who used lipophilic statins, such as simvastatin, there was also a 19% reduction in lung cancer-specific deaths.
Among all of the patients in the study, Science 2.0 reports that those who used statins in the year before a lung cancer diagnosis had a statistically significant 12% reduction in lung cancer-specific deaths. Outcomes were not different between non-small cell lung cancer patients and small cell lung cancer patients in the study.
Source: Science 2.0
