Statin therapy can lower a heart failure patient’s risk of cancer by as much as 16%, according to a new analysis published in the European Heart Journal.
The study’s authors tracked data from more than 87,000 heart failure patients who received care in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2015. Statin use was identified in more than 36,000 patients. After a median follow-up period of 4.1 years, 12.7% of the cohort had been diagnosed with cancer.
Overall, the team reported, statin therapy was associated with a 16% lower risk of cancer among these patients. In addition, staying on statins for four to six years reduced the risk of cancer-related mortality by 33%. Staying on statins longer than six years reduced that risk by 39%.
Also, ten-year cancer-related mortality was 3.8% among statin users and 5.2% among patients who did not use statins.
“Heart failure is a growing disease globally and deaths due to other causes unrelated to the heart and blood vessels are of concern,” lead author Kai-Hang Yiu, MD, PhD, a specialist at the University of Hong Kong, said in a statement. “Our findings should raise doctors’ awareness of the increasing cancer incidence among heart failure patients and encourage them to pay extra attention to non-cardiovascular-related outcomes. Moreover, our study highlights the relationship between heart failure and cancer development, and provides important information regarding the possibility of reducing cancer incidence and related deaths by using statins in these patients.”
The authors called for additional research—including randomized trials—into this area. They also noted that screening all heart failure patients for cancer may be one way to help clinicians identify patients who need immediate care.
Read the full study here.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.