VA researchers say vets who had prostate cancer surgery and took statins had a 30 percent lower risk of recurrence.

from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org

The Departments of Veterans' Affairs (VA), through direct studies and the funding of others, operates the largest medical research organization in the country.  More information is here.

-------------------------

Cholesterol drug cuts risk of recurrence in prostate cancer

Recurrence less likely, study finds

By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer

Little did Stephen Smith know that when he started taking a drug to lower his cholesterol, it might be doing even more for him down the road.

Mr. Smith, 62, was one of the men who had prostate cancer surgery at a VA hospital while taking a statin, who then had no sign of the cancer returning in his blood.

He was among the 1,325 men studied at five Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, including the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, which found that those on statins who had the surgery had a 30 percent lower risk of biochemical recurrence.

The findings will be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association. Taking statins after undergoing a radical prostatectomy had not been previously studied.

"It is an exciting contribution to the building pool of statin and prostate cancer evidence," said Robert J. Hamilton, a former associate in research at Duke University Medical Center and now a urology resident at the University of Toronto.

Obesity has previously been shown to have an impact on prostate cancer, and taking a statin might be counteracting those kinds of biochemical changes that obesity creates, said Martha K. Terris, the chief of urology at the Augusta VA and a professor of urology at Medical College of Georgia.

"You would expect to see similar results if somebody lost weight," she said. "Losing weight appears, based on some prior research, to have a positive impact on prostate cancer and statin medications do the same."

In cardiovascular disease, statins have already proven beneficial, Dr. Hamilton said. He cited the JUPITER study from November that showed that even healthy patients with normal cholesterol levels who took a statin had nearly half the heart disease and death of those who took a placebo.

"As if we didn't have enough impetus to keep studying this, the fact that statins seem to do so much good on the cardiovascular side of things is even more impetus to looking at it in the prostate cancer setting," Dr. Hamilton said.

That seems to hold true for cancer also, Dr. Terris said.

"Any of the factors that affect metabolism, whether it be obesity, high-fat diet, taking statins, seem to impact both your cardiovascular health and prostate cancer risk, and the risk of other cancers as well," she said.

Dr. Hamilton cautioned that their results don't mean that every prostate cancer patient should be given a statin.

"If this finding is confirmed in other studies, in other settings, it blends nicely with a collection of papers that have looked at the association between statins and prostate cancer risk," he said.

Mr. Smith, a retired chief warrant officer, said he has been doing well since his surgery two years ago. To that he credits eating well, exercising and perhaps that statin he is taking.

"Things are working out good for me," he said.