WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- A U.S. epidemiologic study released this week suggests men who use statin drugs may cut in half the risk of advanced prostate cancer.
The study -- published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute -- also showed that statins appear to cut in half the risk of metastatic or fatal prostate cancer, compared to men who did not use the cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The Health Professionals Follow-up Study involved more than 30,000 men, of whom between 4.4 percent and 9.3 percent initially reported using statins.
This percentage had increased to 24 percent of study participants by 2000.
Compared with non-use of statins, current use was inversely linked to the risk of advanced disease after adjusting for age and other risk factors, the researchers said.
In fact, the rate of advanced prostate cancer for the statin users in the study was 38 patients per 100,000 person-years, compared with 89 patients per 100,000 person-years for non-users, they noted.
The association was even stronger for risk of metastatic and fatal prostate cancer, the team added.
Among men who used statins continuously for five or more years, the relative risk of higher-grade disease was lower than the relative risk of lower-grade disease, the researchers concluded.
