Cancer, treatment statins

Dr David Graham from the FDA, speaking to the US senate in 2004, controversially raised concerns (refuted by the respective Pharmaceutical Companies) over the safety of the retinoid, isotretinoin (used in the treatment of cancer), the statin, rosuvastatin (used to lower cholesterol), a long-acting p2-receptor antagonist, salmeterol (used in asthma therapy), and a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine (used as an antidepressant) (21). 

In the five statin megatrials, which collectively randomized over 30,000 patients and had treatment periods of approximately 5 years, new cancers were recorded in over 2000 patients. The numbers of patients with cancer in the active treatment and placebo groups were very similar, as shown in Table III. There was an excess of breast cancer in the pravastatin group in CARE (12 cases vs. 1 in the placebo group), but this is probably an anomalous finding in a small subgroup, as it was not replicable in 4S, LIPID, or AFCAPS, all of which included an appreciable number of female patients (WOS excluded women). The total number of breast cancers in these... 

PUFAs are potent inhibitors of the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme and similar to statins are useful in the treatment of hyperlipidemias (99-102). Statins enhance plasma AA levels and decrease the ratio of EPA to AA significantly (100). This finding suggests that PUFAs mediate many actions of statins (103) and that this could be one mechanism by which they lower cholesterol levels. Statins and PUFAs have many overlap actions such as the inhibition of IL-6 and TNF-a production and NF-kB activation plus the ability to enhance eNO production thus, both possess anti-inflammatory actions and both are useful in atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, stroke, Alzheimer s disease, and inflammatory conditions such as lupus and cancer (3, 4, 94, 104-121). These similar and overlap actions strongly indicate that the molecular mechanisms of actions of statins and PUFAs are similar, if not identical. Furthermore, when a combination of statins and PUFAs are given together, a synergistic beneficial effect was seen in patients with combined hyperlipemia (122). 

Cholesterol Treatment Trialists (CTT) Collaborators. Lack of effect of lowering LDL cholesterol on cancer meta-analysis of individual data from 175,000 people in 27 randomised trials of statin therapy. PLoS One 2012 7 e29849. 

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