Statins May Not Reduce Colorectal Cancer Risk

A new study finds that long-term use of statins does not seem to impact patients’ risk of colorectal cancer.

A team of investigators compared the statin use and blood cholesterol levels of 22,163 patients with colorectal cancer to 85,538 patients without colorectal cancer. Patients were selected from a database of electronic records of more than 10 million patients from primary care practices in the United Kingdom.
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According to the authors, they confirmed findings from previous research that demonstrated a lower risk of colorectal cancer in statin users in comparison to nonusers. The researchers, however, found the risk of colorectal cancer did not differ drastically between patients who continued statin therapy and those who discontinued statin use.

In addition, the investigators saw a 10% decreased risk of colorectal cancer for every 1 mmol/L increase in total cholesterol level. The team also observed that decreases in total serum cholesterol at least 1 year before cancer diagnosis was linked to a 1.25-fold and 2.36-fold greater risk of colorectal cancers in statin users and those not using statins, respectively.

“Physicians should not prescribe statins with the goal of reducing the risk of colorectal cancer, and should employ the available colorectal cancer screening modalities without regard to whether the patient is taking a statin,” according to James D. Lewis, MD, MSCE, a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a coauthor of the study.

In addition, the primary care practitioner “should consider colon cancer as a possible explanation,” Lewis said, “when there is an otherwise unexplained decrease in cholesterol concentration.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference
Mamtani R, Lewis JD, Scott FI, et al. Disentangling the association between statins, cholesterol, and colorectal cancer: a nested case-control study. PLOS Medicine. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002007.