Post-diagnostic statin use and its association with cancer recurrence and mortality in breast cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Statins are widely acknowledged for their application in patients with hypercholesterolemia to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. More recently, their potential to exert pleiotropic effects, particularly in impeding the proliferation of neoplastic cells, has attracted considerable attention. Prior studies have demonstrated that statins may mitigate cancer progression and micrometastasis. However, the benefits of statins in breast cancer have been inconclusive.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the impact of statin use following a breast cancer diagnosis on breast cancer recurrence and mortality.

METHODS

We performed a systematic literature search using PubMed, Embase, and Scopus for relevant articles from inception until 30th May 2023. Hazard ratios (HR) were pooled using a random-effect model. The primary outcome of interest was the risk of breast cancer recurrence. The secondary outcomes included breast cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality.

RESULTS

A total of 15 studies with 156 448 patients were included in the final analysis. The mean age of patients between statin users and non-users was 64.59 and 59.15 years, respectively. Statin use was associated with a reduction in the recurrence of breast cancer [HR 0.76, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.67-0.87] compared with non-statin users. This trend was similar among lipophilic statin users (HR 0.73, 95% CI: 0.63-0.85) but not for hydrophilic statin users (HR 1.17, 95% CI: 0.82-1.68). Furthermore, statin users exhibited a lower risk of breast cancer mortality (HR 0.80, 95% CI: 0.66-0.96) but all-cause mortality (HR 0.82, 95% CI: 0.66-1.02) was comparable among both groups of patients. Conversely, lipophilic statins demonstrated a reduction in both all-cause mortality (HR 0.84, 95% CI: 0.75-0.93) and breast cancer mortality (HR 0.85, 95% CI: 0.74-0.99) compared to non-statin users.

CONCLUSION

Among patients with breast cancer, statin use post-diagnosis decreases the risk of breast cancer recurrence and breast cancer mortality. Furthermore, lipophilic statins exhibit an additional advantage of reduction in all-cause mortality.PROSPERO registration: CRD42022362011.

Comparative risk of lipophilic and hydrophilic statins on incident depression: A retrospective cohort study

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the risk of new-onset depression in a cohort of US adult patients initiating lipophilic statin therapy compared to hydrophilic statin therapy.

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING

Large US commercial claims database PARTICIPANTS: 1:1 propensity score matched cohort of lipophilic (atorvastatin, lovastatin and simvastatin) and hydrophilic (pravastatin and rosuvastatin) statin initiators between January 2009 to June 2015.

OUTCOME

New onset of depression.

RESULTS

In a propensity-score matched cohort of 299,298 statin initiators, the crude incidence of depression in the hydrophilic and lipophilic group was 136.6 and 142.8 per 10,000 person-years respectively. Compared to hydrophilic statin use, lipophilic statin use was not associated with a statistically significant increase in the risk of depression, adjusted HR 1.05 (95% CI, 1.00-1.10, p = 0.078) and excess incidence of 6.3 (95% CI, -0.7-13.7) per 10,000 person-years. Findings were consistent across the subgroups of patients with history of psychiatric conditions HR 1.05 (95% CI, 0.94-1.16, p = 0.41), and those initiating statins for primary or secondary prevention, HR 1.03 (95% CI, 0.97-1.10, p = 0.33) and 1.07 (95% CI, 0.99-1.16, p = 0.10) respectively. Within individual lipophilic statins, only simvastatin was associated with a moderate increase in the risk of depression HR 1.09 (95% CI, 1.02-1.16, p = 0.003), followed by lovastatin HR 1.07 (95% CI, 0.93-1.24, p = 0.34) and atorvastatin HR 1.05 (95% CI, 0.97-1.13, p = 0.27).

LIMITATIONS

Findings are generalizable to patients with commercial insurance.

CONCLUSIONS

Lipophilic statin use was not associated with a significant increase in the risk of incident depression.

Hydrophilic vs lipophilic statins in coronary artery disease: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

INTRODUCTION

Some available experimental studies have reported that hydrophilic statins might have advantages compared with lipophilic statins in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the potential differences of lipophilic and hydrophilic statins in patients with CAD.

METHODS

We systematically searched selected electronic databases up to September 2016 to select RCTs, which compared clinical outcomes of hydrophilic vs lipophilic statins. Primary endpoints were cardiovascular (CV) events: major adverse cardiac events, myocardial infarction, cardiac revascularization, stroke, CV death, CV hospitalization, and all-cause mortality. Secondary endpoints were safety parameters: drug discontinuation, statin-associated muscle symptoms and alanine aminotransferase level increase.

RESULTS

A total of 11,697 patients from 11 RCTs, randomly allocated to lipophilic (n = 5736) or hydrophilic statins (n = 5961), with a mean follow-up 14 months, were included in the meta-analysis. In comparison with hydrophilic, the lipophilic statins showed similar risk reduction for major adverse cardiac events (relative risk = 0.969, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.835-1.125, P = .682), myocardial infarction (0.880, 95% CI: 0.731-1.058, P = .174), CV death (0.757, 95% CI: 0.486-1.180, P = .219), and all-cause mortality (0.797, 95% CI: 0.590-1.075, P = .137), as well as cardiac revascularization, stroke, drug discontinuation, and statin-associated muscle symptoms. CV hospitalization was lower (0.789, 95% CI: 0.643-0.969, P = .024) and alanine aminotransferase elevation was higher (2.689, 95% CI: 1.841-3.954, P ≤ .001) in lipophilic than in hydrophilic-treated patients.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, similarity between hydrophilic and lipophilic statins holds between various clinical CAD settings.