Statins reduce breast-cancer risk by half

Main Category: Statins
Article Date: 18 May 2005 - 10:00 PDT

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Statins, a class of drugs that lower blood cholesterol, halve the risk of breast cancer in women.

This was the finding of Dr Vikas Khurana, assistant professor of medicine at Louisiana State University Health Science Center at Shreveport and senior author of the study. The investigation compared statin use between 556 women with a history of breast cancer and 39,865 women without the disease who served as controls. All women were female veterans in the South Central United States. Data were gathered between October 1998 and June 2004. After controlling for age, smoking, alcohol use and diabetes, the risk of breast cancer was 51% lower for statin users than for non-users. The median age was 56 years . Of these women 4771 (11.8%) were on statins. Breast cancer was seen in 556 (1.38)%) women in total. Statin users were less likely to develop breast cancer (odds ratio 0.49; P=<0.0001). Dr Khurana presented his study at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando.

The United Kingdom is the only country in the world that allows a statin to be bought over the counter: simvastatin. There is potentially a danger in that country of woman with a fear of breast cancer or who fear recurrence, being tempted to deceive the pharmacist to buy the drug. However, Dr Khurana cautioned that more studies are needed to evaluate the possible protective role of statins in breast cancer, including large, randomised prospective studies. ' It would be premature to tell women to take statins to decrease their breast cancer risk', he said. 'But if our results are confirmed, I think statins will have a significant chemopreventive role in women at high risk for breast cancer.'

When asked by Robert Short, a UK medical journalist, specifically about the temptation for women in the UK, Dr Khurana replied: 'The message is still the same. You do not want to take a statin if you do not have a lipid abnormality'.

However, Dr Khurana was unaware that woman in the UK are not required to be tested for lipid abnormalities before buying a statin. Dr Ike Iheanacho, Editor of Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, Which's watchdog publication on drugs and a critic of the cardiovascular strategy for allowing over-the-counter-statin therapy points out: 'You can in the UK get a statin without having a cholesterol test and BP measured. That means there is going to be a class of people who end up on the statins for which the evidence is equivocal at best'. He wants a precise estimate of what their risk is before it is used and is cynical about the cardiovascular strategy. He also agrees with Dr Khurana's view of self-medication for preventing breast cancer. 'It would be premature to take a statin on that basis.'

For more information, other news stories or to commission feature articles from ASCO 2005 for European publications contact roddy@roddycormack.com

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