The findings, first reported in 2005, come from an analysis of nearly half a million patient records collected from 1998 to 2004 in eight southern states. The statins include Zocor, Lipitor, Pravachol, Crestor, Lescol, and Mevacor.
Earlier studies have suggested that statins may cut a person's risk of many cancers, including breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, brain cancer, kidney cancer, and leukemia.
The new study, which appears in the May issue of the journal Chest, strongly suggests that the statin drugs help prevent cancer but doctors also add that they did not eliminate it. Of the 7,280 patients who got lung cancer, 1,994, 27.4 percent were taking statins.
Health Day news suggests that U.S. researchers found that patients taking a statin for at least six months experienced a drop in lung cancer risk of 55 percent. Almost all the patients in the study were men.
According to the American Cancer Society lung cancer remains the biggest cancer killer in the United States. It is estimated that in 2007, almost 214,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed. More than 160,000 men and women will die of the disease this year, which in more than 80 percent of cases is linked to smoking.
Researchers say statins inhibit the onset and growth of malignancy at the molecular level thus reducing the cancer risk. Researchers also found that statin use of less than six months was associated with an increased risk for developing lung cancer.
