Observational studies suggest potential chemopreventive benefits of statins on prostate cancer outcomes, but data on the impact of post-diagnostic use are sparse.
We examined the association of post-diagnostic statin use and risk of lethal prostate cancer (metastases or prostate cancer death, N=242) among 3,949 men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study between 1992 and 2008 and followed through 2010 (33,302 person years).
We used Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate relative risks and 95% confidence intervals, adjusting for age, time period, time from diagnosis to questionnaire, body mass index, vigorous physical activity, smoking, aspirin use, clinical stage, PSA at diagnosis, Gleason score, primary treatment, and comorbidities
We found no statistically significant association between post-diagnostic current use of statins or duration of statin usage and the outcome of lethal prostate cancer (N=242 cases; multivariate HR=0 97 (95% CI 0 72, 1 31) for current use yes/no; HR = 0 85 (95% CI 0 59, 1 22) for 1-5 years use, 0 96 (95% CI 0 66, 1 38) for 6+ years of use vs never use)
We observed little evidence that statin usage after diagnosis of localized prostate cancer reduces risk of progression to metastatic disease or prostate cancer specific death
These results do not support statins as a chemopreventive agent for prostate cancer progression
Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology 2015 Jul 19 [Epub ahead of print]
June M Chan, Stacey A Kenfield, Alan Paciorek, Elizabeth A Platz, Edward L Giovannucci, Meir Stampfer
Dept of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Urology, University of California San Francisco jchan@urology ucsf edu , Urology, University of California, San Francisco , University of CA San Francisco , Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health , Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health , Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School