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Statin use and prostate cancer risk in a large population-based setting

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Abstract

Background

Statins are a commonly used cholesterol-lowering drug, which also have the potential to affect cancer risk and progression. Results from previous studies offer mixed conclusions.

Methods

To evaluate the relation between statin use and prostate cancer risk, we conducted a retrospective cohort study during 1 January 1990 to 31 August 2005 among men 45–79 years receiving care within Group Health, an integrated healthcare delivery system. Information on statin use and covariates were obtained from health plan databases. We identified incident prostate cancer cases through the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for prostate cancer among statin users compared to non-users.

Results

Among 83,372 men studied, median follow-up time was 5.7 years and 2,532 prostate cancer cases were identified. About 14.4% used statins over the study period and median duration of use was 3.3 years. Compared to non-users, hydrophobic statin users had a reduced risk of prostate cancer (HR = 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66–0.94), and results are suggestive of a reduced risk among ever users of statins (HR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.76–1.02) and hydrophilic statin users (HR = 0.67; 95% CI, 0.33–1.34). There was no trend in risk by duration of statin use, and no association between statin use and cancer aggressiveness, stage, or grade.

Conclusion

Overall, this study does not support an associated between statin use and prostate cancer but a reduced risk cannot be ruled out.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Deborah Seger, Dawn Fitzgibbons, Janet Stanford, and Ilir Agalliu for their valuable contributions. This study was supported by the National Cancer Institute (CA108357).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Group Health Center for Health Studies, 1730 Minor Ave., Suite 1600, Seattle, WA, 98101, USA

    Denise M. Boudreau, Onchee Yu, Diana S. M. Buist & Diana L. Miglioretti

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Denise M. Boudreau, Diana S. M. Buist & Diana L. Miglioretti

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  1. Denise M. Boudreau
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  2. Onchee Yu
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  3. Diana S. M. Buist
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  4. Diana L. Miglioretti
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Correspondence to Denise M. Boudreau.

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Boudreau, D.M., Yu, O., Buist, D.S.M. et al. Statin use and prostate cancer risk in a large population-based setting. Cancer Causes Control 19, 767–774 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-008-9139-4

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