Prostate Cancer Health Center

Statins May Protect Prostate Cancer Patients

More Research Needed

Freedland says the findings warrant further research to better understand if statins play a role in prostate cancer progression.

“Obviously this is just one study, and it is observational,” he says. “But if these findings are confirmed, this is pretty profound.”

American Cancer Society Director of Prostate and Colorectal Cancers Durado Brooks, MD, agrees that the matter deserves more study.

But he says it is far too soon to recommend statins to prevent prostate cancer recurrence.

“Even if these findings are confirmed, we don’t know if starting statins after prostate cancer is diagnosed does any good at all, because these men were taking statins before diagnosis,” he says.

He adds that since statin use has been shown to lower PSA levels, the interpretation of the findings is not so clear.

“Without actually doing biopsies on these men, we can’t say for sure that their cancers had not recurred,” he says. “And right now we can’t say if these drugs actually lower the risk of dying from prostate cancer. It will take many years to figure this out.”