Statin use may be associated with improved survival among patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to findings from a study published in the journal Lung.
Prior studies have shown that statins, a drug commonly used to help manage high cholesterol, may have an anticancer effect in patients with certain malignancies, including one study that identified a link between statin use and survival in patients with small cell lung cancer. However, it is still unclear whether statins have a mortality benefit in NSCLC. Therefore, researchers led by Jenny J. Lin, MD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, NY), conducted a study comparing the survival of patients with stage IV NSCLC receiving or not receiving statins prior to diagnosis.
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They used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry linked to Medicare claims to identify 5118 patients age 65 years or older diagnosed with stage IV NSCLC between 2007 and 2009. Propensity score methods were then used to assess the association of statin use with overall and lung cancer-specific survival while controlling for measured confounders.
Overall, 27% of patients included in the study were on statins at the time of their lung cancer diagnosis. Among these patients, median survival was 7 months, compared to 4 months in patients not on statins. In addition, after controlling for multiple factors, propensity score analyses revealed that statin use was associated with overall and lung cancer-specific survival improvement.
This led the researchers to conclude that statin use may be associated with improved survival among patients with stage IV NSCLC, suggesting a potential anticancer effect. Further research should be conducted to test the phenomenon in clinical trials and evaluate plausible biological mechanisms.
