prostate-report.org

Prostate cancer patients on statins have better outcomes after radiotherapy

There is a large collection of evidence to suggest that men who are on long-term statin therapy (with drugs like simvastatin, atorvastatin/Lipitor, or rosuvastatin/Crestor) are at lower risk for prostate cancer and do better than average in terms of treatment outcome if they are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Giving a growing interest in the potential anticancer activity of statins based on preclinical evidence of their antiproliferative, proapoptotic, and radiosensitizing properties, a recent study at University of Chicago aimed to determine whether statin use is associated with improved clinical outcomes in patients treated with radiotherapy  for prostate cancer.

The study concluded that statin use was associated with a significant improvement in freedom from biochemical failure (FFBF), freedom from salvage androgen deprivation therapy (FFADT), and relapse-free survival (RFS) in this cohort of men treated with RT for prostate cancer. The favorable effect of statins may be mediated by direct effect or via the LDL-lowering effect of these