A research study led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered a substantial association in between cholesterol-lowering drugs frequently referred to as statins and survival rates of triple-negative breast cancer clients. Since statins are low in expense, simple to gain access to, and produce very little adverse effects, this might have a crucial effect on results for this aggressive illness.
The research study, led by Kevin Nead, M.D., assistant teacher of Epidemiology, was released today (August 3, 2021) in the journal Cancer. This research study extends the present understanding of the association in between statin usage and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and it is the very first research study that was sufficiently powered to examine the association of statins and aggressive breast cancer subtypes.
Researchers discovered a 58% relative enhancement in breast cancer-specific survival and a 30% relative enhancement in general survival with statin usage. The typical follow-up was 3.3 years for breast cancer-specific survival and 4.4 years for general survival.
“There is already a body of literature on statins and breast cancer and the results have been inconsistent,” Nead stated. “Previous research has looked at breast cancer as only one disease, but we know there are many subtypes of breast cancer and we wanted to focus our research on this particularly aggressive form of breast cancer that has limited effective treatment options.”
TNBC is an aggressive illness that comprises approximately 10% to 20% of breast cancer medical diagnoses. Triple-unfavorable methods that the breast cancer doesn’t have estrogen or progesterone receptors or HER2 positivity, which are the 3 most typical receptors for breast cancer. This mix leads to an extremely aggressive breast cancer with bad diagnosis and restricted treatment alternatives considering that there are couple of receptors to actively target with existing treatments.
The retrospective research study picked clients consisted of in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare windows registry and the Texas Cancer Registry (TCR)-Medicare, 2 big databases of administrative claims of Medicare-qualified clients. Patients were needed to have Medicare Part D prescription protection to identify their statin usage.
The research study consisted of information from 23,192 females over age 66 with phase I-III breast cancer. From that client accomplice, 2,281 were incidental statin users, implying they began a statin within one year following their breast cancer medical diagnosis. The incidental statin users were 78.1% white, 8.9% Black, 8.4% Hispanic and 4.5% other.
Analysis by breast cancer phase recommended that the association of incidental statin usage with enhanced results might be more powerful in females with early phase TNBC. When taking a look at statin strength, high-intensity statin usage had the greatest impact on general survival amongst females with TNBC. Researchers likewise discovered a statistically considerable association in between lipophilic statins (L-statin: simvastatin, atorvastatin, lovastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin) and enhanced general survival.
“We know that statins decrease breast cancer cell division and increase cell death,” Nead stated. “Our study shows that there is an association between statins and improved outcomes in TNBC, and it is time to pursue this idea further in a prospective trial.”
Prospective trials are required to confirm these research study results and to much better specify the possible function of statins in TNBC treatment.
Reference: “Association of statin use with clinical outcomes in patients with triple negative breast cancer” by Malgorzata K. Nowakowska BS, Xiudong Lei PhD, Mikayla T. Thompson BS, Simona F. Shaitelman MD, EdM, Mackenzie R. Wehner MD, MPhil, Wendy A. Woodward MD, PhD, Sharon H. Giordano MD and Kevin T. Nead MD, MPhil, 3 August 2021, Cancer.
DOI: 10.1002/cncr.33797
This research study was supported by the National Institutes of Health CCSG (P30 CA016672). Additional assistance was supplied by the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (RR190077) (FP9178) (RP160674) and Komen (SAC150061).
