Being treated for high cholesterol with statins is being linked with a reduced risk of death and better survival from four common cancers, a medical conference has heard.
Among the patients in the study, almost 8,000 had lung cancer, 5,500 had breast cancer, 4,600 had prostate cancer and 4,500 had colon cancer, the researchers found. So the researchers think the statin treatment might explain the protective effect, rather than high cholesterol itself.
Data for patients admitted to United Kingdom hospitals between January 1, 2000-March 31, 2013 with the listed cancers were obtained from the Algorithm for Comorbidities, Associations, Length of stay and Mortality (ACALM) clinical database, which also provided data on comorbidities such as high cholesterol; mortality data was obtained from the Office of National Statistics.