CTT meta-analyse: geen toename risico op kanker met statines

 

Stockholm, Sweden - A large meta-analysis from the Cholesterol Trialists' Collaboration provides evidence that statins do not increase the risk of developing cancer. Investigators report that statin therapy had no adverse effect on any cancer type, irrespective of how long patients took the cholesterol-lowering medications.

 

"Most of the trials are only five years in duration, so it's really impossible to speculate on what the risk would be in 20 years' time, but the lack of any of any hint of an emergence of increasing cancer risk in treated patients should be very reassuring," lead investigator Dr Jonathan Emberson (University of Oxford, UK) told heartwire. "I think we have all the data we're going to have to answer this question, and these results are a very reassuring demonstration that there is no increased risk."

The results of the meta-analysis will be formally presented this week here at the European Society of 2010 Cardiology Congress and were presented early to the media during an afternoon press conference.
 

Included in the data were 21 studies, including more than 130 000 patients, comparing statins vs placebo controls, and five studies, with approximately 40 000 patients, examining different statin doses. Overall, there was no risk of cancer with statin therapy, and there was no increased risk observed among patients treated with higher statin doses. Numerically, the number of patients who developed cancer was nearly identical in the statin and control arms and in the statin trials comparing higher vs lower doses.
 

In addition, there was no increased incidence of cancer when investigators analyzed the rates of disease among patients by baseline LDL-cholesterol levels, including levels <77 mg/dL, or by duration of treatment. Similarly, there was no increased risk of any specific types of cancer, such as breast, prostate, bladder, or hematological cancers.