Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2012 Feb 1;118(3):797-803.
doi: 10.1002/cncr.26338. Epub 2011 Jul 12.

Statin use and the risk of renal cell carcinoma in 2 prospective US cohorts

Wei Liu  1 , Toni K Choueiri, Eunyoung Cho
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Statin use and the risk of renal cell carcinoma in 2 prospective US cohorts

Wei Liu et al. Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Statins are widely used cholesterol-lowering agents that may have potential antitumor effect. Epidemiological studies on statin use and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) risk have been inconsistent.

Methods: The authors investigated the association between statin use and RCC risk in the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. In total, 80,782 women and 37,869 men were followed for 14 years and 16 years, respectively. Regular statin use was assessed at baseline and was updated biennially during follow-up. RCC diagnosis was confirmed by medical record review.

Results: Two hundred seventy-seven incident RCC cases (164 women and 113 men) were identified. Compared with no current use, the multivariate relative risks of current statin use were 0.68 (95% confidence interval, 0.46-1.00) in women and 1.17 (95% confidence interval, 0.75-1.82) in men. The results for ever versus never users of statins were similar. No dose-response relation with duration of statin use and RCC risk was observed. On subgroup analyses, statin use was associated with a reduced RCC risk among women who had no history of hypertension.

Conclusions: The current study indicated that statin use may be associated with a lower risk of RCC in women, although these results need to be investigated further.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: none declared.

References

    1. MRC/BHF Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group. MRC/BHF Heart Protection Study of cholesterol lowering with simvastatin in 20,536 high-risk individuals: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Lancet. 2002 Jul 6;360( 9326):7–22. - PubMed
    1. The Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study. Randomised trial of cholesterol lowering in 4444 patients with coronary heart disease: the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S) Lancet. 1994 Nov 19;344(8934):1383–1389. - PubMed
    1. Mills EJ, Rachlis B, Wu P, Devereaux PJ, Arora P, Perri D. Primary prevention of cardiovascular mortality and events with statin treatments: a network meta-analysis involving more than 65,000 patients. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008 Nov 25;52(22):1769–1781. - PubMed
    1. Hindler K, Cleeland CS, Rivera E, Collard CD. The role of statins in cancer therapy. Oncologist. 2006 Mar;11(3):306–315. - PubMed
    1. Pahan K. Lipid-lowering drugs. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2006 May;63(10):1165–1178. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances