Lipophilic statin use was associated with reduced mortality in women with epithelial ovarian cancer and all subtypes in a large observational study compared with never users. These findings were presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting II.
Lead author, Kala Visvanathan, MD, MS, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Baltimore, noted: “The reduction was observed in statin users just prior to and after diagnosis. A range of reductions in mortality were observed across all stages, treatments, and epithelial ovarian cancer subtypes.”
Kala Visvanathan, MD, MS
The large observational study included 10,062 women aged 18 and older diagnosed with incident ovarian cancer between 1995 and 2015. The women were part of the Finnish National Cancer Registry and the National Prescription Claims Database. The analysis was adjusted for age at diagnosis; stage; epithelial ovarian cancer subtype; initial treatment; year of diagnosis; and concurrent receipt of beta-blockers and cardiac, diabetes, and nonstatin cholesterol-lowering medications. Women were followed from diagnosis to death or censoring. Patients were characterized as statin users or never users.
Among the 10,062 women, 2,621 were statin users; of these patients, 80% used lipophilic statins. The median duration of statin use was 7.5 years, and the median age at diagnosis was 67 among patients who ever used statins.
Statin use of any kind was associated with a 40% reduction in ovarian cancer–specific mortality vs no statin use. At 5 years, the reduction in mortality observed with statin use was 37%.
“These findings warrant further evaluation of lipophilic statins in a randomized control trial and reinforce the value of examining existing therapies that are commonly used and inexpensive to reduce the global cancer burden,” Dr. Visvanathan said.
DISCLOSURE: No conflicts of interest reported.
REFERENCE
1. Visvanahan K, et al: Lipophilic statins show promise for treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer. AACR Virtual Annual Meeting II. Abstract 5782.
