Statins Found to Reduce Breast Cancer Death by More Than 40 Percent
A major research found that statins could help reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by 40 percent. In Britain alone, the cholesterol-lowering medicine is taken every day by six million people who are at risk of heart disease. Now, the drug is seen to halt the growth of tumors.
The National Cancer Centre in Beijing compiled seven previously published studies covering 197,048 women and learned that volunteers who had taken any kind of statin were 27 percent less likely to die from breast cancer within four years than those who never took the drug.
The effect was far greater for women who were followed up for less than four years, where death from breast cancer was cut by 38 percent. For women with more than four years of follow-up, statins did not appear to have any significant effect on whether or not they died.
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The research also compared the effects of the two main type of statins. Women who had been taking hydrophilic statins were only 6 percent less likely to die in four years — a weaker and not scientifically significant effect. On the other hand, those who took lipophilic statins were found to be 43 percent less likely to die from breast cancer.
Dr. Binliang Liu from the department of medical oncology at the Beijing center said that their meta-analysis showed that statins can truly change the prognosis of breast cancer. Lipophilic statin, particularly, has a good effect on the immune system, and it can penetrate cell membrane more easily.
The new study follows previous research in April which found that women on statins lived longer than those who did not take them. The paper, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, stated that breast cancer patients who took the lipophilic form of statins were less likely to see their cancer return.
Various alternative medications for breast cancer have sprouted nowadays. Last year, researchers culled 26 separate trials involving 19,000 women and concluded that bisphosphonates, a cheap and widely available medicine for osteoporosis, could prevent breast cancer death.
