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Statin use and all-cancer survival: prospective results from the Women's Health Initiative

Statin use and all-cancer survival: prospective results from the Women's Health Initiative BRITISH JOURNAL OF CANCER Wang, A., Aragaki, A. K., Tang, J. Y., Kurian, A. W., Manson, J. E., Chlebowski, R. T., Simon, M., Desai, P., Wassertheil-Smoller, S., Liu, S., Kritchevsky, S., Wakelee, H. A., Stefanick, M. L. 2016; 115 (1): 129-135

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the association between statin use and all-cancer survival in a prospective cohort of postmenopausal women, using data from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS) and Clinical Trial (WHI-CT).The WHI study enrolled women aged 50-79 years from 1993 to 1998 at 40 US clinical centres. Among 146?326 participants with median 14.6 follow-up years, 23?067 incident cancers and 3152 cancer deaths were observed. Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the relationship between statin use and cancer survival.Compared with never-users, current statin use was associated with significantly lower risk of cancer death (hazard ratio (HR), 0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.71-0.86, P<0.001) and all-cause mortality (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.74-0.88). Use of other lipid-lowering medications was also associated with increased cancer survival (P-interaction (int)=0.57). The lower risk of cancer death was not dependent on statin potency (P-int=0.22), lipophilicity/hydrophilicity (P-int=0.43), type (P-int=0.34) or duration (P-int=0.33). However, past statin users were not at lower risk of cancer death compared with never-users (HR, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.85-1.33); in addition, statin use was not associated with a reduction of overall cancer incidence despite its effect on survival (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.92-1.001).In a cohort of postmenopausal women, regular use of statins or other lipid-lowering medications was associated with decreased cancer death, regardless of the type, duration, or potency of statin medications used.British Journal of Cancer advance online publication, 9 June 2016; doi:10.1038/bjc.2016.149 www.bjcancer.com.

View details for DOI 10.1038/bjc.2016.149

View details for PubMedID 27280630