Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA.
Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, and Cardiovascular Division and Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA.
Although prostate cancer is commonly diagnosed, few risk factors for high-grade prostate cancer are known and few prevention strategies exist. Statins have been proposed as a possible treatment to prevent prostate cancer.
Using electronic and administrative files from the Veterans Affairs New England Healthcare System, we identified 55 875 men taking either a statin or antihypertensive medication. We used age- and multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard models to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for prostate cancer incidence among patients taking statins (n = 41 078) compared with patients taking antihypertensive medications (n = 14 797). We performed similar analyses for all lipid parameters including total cholesterol examining each lipid parameter as a continuous variable and by quartiles. All statistical tests were two-sided.
Compared with men taking an antihypertensive medication, statin users were 31% less likely (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.52 to 0.90) to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Furthermore, statin users were 14% less likely (HR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.62 to 1.20) to be diagnosed with low-grade prostate cancer and 60% less likely (HR = 0.40, 95% CI = 0.24 to 0.65) to be diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer compared with antihypertensive medication users. Increased levels of total cholesterol were also associated with both total (HR = 1.02, 95% CI = 1.00 to 1.05) and high-grade (HR = 1.06, 95% CI = 1.02 to 1.10) prostate cancer incidence but not with low-grade prostate cancer incidence (HR = 1.01, 95% CI = 0.98 to 1.04).
Statin use is associated with statistically significantly reduced risk for total and high-grade prostate cancer, and increased levels of serum cholesterol are associated with higher risk for total and high-grade prostate cancer. These findings indicate that clinical trials of statins for prostate cancer prevention are warranted.
Written by:
Farwell WR, D'Avolio LW, Scranton RE, Lawler EV, Gaziano JM. Are you the author?
Reference: J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011 Apr 15. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1093/jnci/djr108
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 21498780
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