Statins linked to lower risk of early death in patients with colorectal cancer

Use of statins before or after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer was linked with a lower risk of premature death, both from cancer and from other causes, in a Cancer Medicine analysis of published studies.

The meta-analysis included 14 studies involving 130,994 patients with colorectal cancer. Pre-diagnosis statin use was linked with a 15 percent lower risk of dying early from any cause and an 18 percent lower risk of dying from cancer. Post-diagnosis statin use was linked with a 14 percent lower risk of all-cause death and a 21 percent lower risk of cancer-specific death.

"Considering that statins are low-costed and wildly-used agents worldwide, we believe our updated meta-analysis can provide new insights into optimizing adjuvant treatment of colorectal cancer," the authors wrote.