ORLANDO, FL USA (UroToday.com) - It has been hypothesized that because of their possible effects on the Akt/mTOR pathway, statins may be beneficial for treating cancer. In their presentation, Bishoy Gayed and colleagues discussed their efforts to identify potential association between statin use and outcomes in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).
The study was comprised of 63 patients who were treated for mRCC at one institution. They performed a retrospective review of the cases and divided patients based on Motzer criteria. There was a limitation in the methods in that the authors could only identify 11.1% of cases that had available risk data. The authors used Kaplan Meier analysis to evaluate cancer-specific survival.
They reported that 50.8% of their patients had stage of pT3, and 82.4% of the patients had clear cell pathology. When the authors analyzed their results, they found that 54% of their patients had already died of metastatic RCC. Their data showed that patients who used statins had improved cancer-specific survival in a 2-year period.
The authors concluded that statin use was associated with improved survival in patients with metastatic RCC. However, given the study was retrospective, a prospective trial is needed. It is important to have a larger sample to assess the real impact of statins on metastatic renal cell carcinoma. While obesity is also associated with renal cell carcinoma, the authors did not include it as a covariate in their analysis. It would be important in future studies to consider obesity and other potential covariates that may be involved in survival rates of patients in order to draw conclusions from statin use.
Presented by Bishoy Gayed, MD at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting- May 16 - 21, 2014 - Orlando, Florida USA
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX USA
Written by Garen Abedi, MD, University of California (Irvine), and medical writer for UroToday.com
