Currently, the strategies to look for colon cancer are to detect it early using colonoscopy and fecal occult blood testing. The ultimate goal to prevent this disease is to use chemoprevention.
Last month, a presentation at the American College of Gastroenterology 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting and postgraduate course, showed a significant stain users have a lower risk of developing colon and rectal cancer.
The presentation was based on a meta-analysis of 22 studies involving more than 2.5 million participants who have used statin drugs. The results indicated that statin can lower the risk of developing colorectal cancer by 12%.
Furthermore, the benefits of statin were greatest among patients with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. In those patients, patients who used statin had a 70% reduction in their colon cancer risk compared with patients who didn’t use those drugs.
The National Cancer Institute is considering a large scale, prospective study using rosuvastatin (Crestor, AstraZeneca) to confirm this benefit.
Source: American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course: Poster abstract P1217. Presented October 19, 2010.
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