Statins do not cause or prevent cancer, researchers find

WASHINGTON - The cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins neither cause cancer nor prevent it, US researchers reported yesterday.

People with the lowest levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad," cholesterol) were more likely to have cancer, but those whose LDL was lowered by statin use were no more likely to develop cancer than those with naturally low LDL levels, the team at Tufts Medical Center found.

"Despite their LDL-lowering effects, statins don't cause cancer," Dr. Richard Karas, who led the study, said in a phone interview.

His team did what is known as a meta-analysis, reviewing data from 15 large randomized controlled trials of statins, which included 51,797 patients given statins and 45,043 patients given a placebo and then followed for an average four and a half years.

Some studies showed a cancer risk with statins, but on average, there was none, Karas and colleagues report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "When you look at all of the statin trials together, what they show is there is no overall effect on cancer, either increasing it or preventing it," Karas said.

They did find clear risk of cancer, the number two killer of residents of developed nations behind heart disease, among those with low LDL levels.

"We found a very interesting thing, which is that in those studies, the lower the LDL level, the higher the risk of cancer. It was a pretty strong effect," Karas said. "There was about a three-fold increase in cancer going from the highest LDL levels to the lowest LDL levels."

It worked out to about two more cancers per thousand people per year with every 10 point drop in LDL cholesterol, he said.

"Statins on average lowered LDL by about 40 points, so if statins did cause cancer, that 40-point drop in LDL cholesterol should have produced eight more cancers," Karas said. "So in the statin group we would expect to see 20 cancers per thousand person-years [per thousand people per year]. Instead, what we found was 12.7, which was the exact same as in placebo patients."

Statins, the world's top-selling drugs, are highly effective at cutting the risk of heart attack and stroke.