Retrospective Study of the Effect of Statins on the Outcome of Lung Cancer Patients, University of Cincinnati Experience

Gaber, Ola; Eldessouki, Ihab; Hassan, Rammey; Magdy, Mohamed; Morris, John C; Abdel Karim, Nagla

doi:10.31557/APJCP.2019.20.8.2391

Retrospective Study of the Effect of Statins on the Outcome of Lung Cancer Patients, University of Cincinnati Experience

Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

¹ Department of Hematology-Oncology, Division of Internal Medicine, Vontz Center for Molecular Studies, University of Cincinnati, 3125 Eden Ave, Cincinnati OH 45267, United States.

² Children Cancer Hospital, Cairo, Egypt.

10.31557/APJCP.2019.20.8.2391

Abstract

Objectives: Numerous studies addressed the effect of statin on cancer patients. The aim of this study is to define the
effect of statin administration with chemotherapy on the patients’ outcomes. Methods: We retrospectively researched
the database of the University of Cincinnati cancer to identify lung cancer patients who received statins (S+, n=41)
during their treatment in our institute. We also, retrieved data for contemporaneously treated patients who did not
receive statins (S-, n=159) as a control arm. Clinico-demographical data and overall survival (OS) were analyzed using
Pearson’s Chi-square (χ2) test and Kaplan-Meier survival curves with Log-rank test. Adjustment using Cox proportional
hazard ratios (HR) were done based on (age, gender, race and stage) to identify effect of statins on their outcomes.
Results: The median age for S+ was 64y (IQR; 55-69) and 71.2% of the patients were white. Histopathology was
55.4% and 31.7% for adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, respectively. Fifty-six percent were stage IV in
each study arm and the median OS was14.9 m. Median OS was insignificantly lower in S–ve arm (13.7 vs 15.6 months;
P=0.652, HR=0.91, 95%CI 0.52-1.57). Our results show that after different types of adjustments, S+ did not show
survival advantage (P>0.05) compared to the control arm. Conclusion: While showing an increase in overall survival
in patients with advanced lung cancer, the results of this study did not reach statistical significance. This could be due
for the small sample size of this retrospective study.

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