Abstract
Long-term use of statins has been reported to reduce the risk of death in patients with lung cancer. This study investigated the effect of statin use among patients with lung cancer receiving epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKIs) therapy. A nationwide, population-based case-control study was conducted using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. From January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2012, a total of 1,707 statin and 6,828 non-statin matched lung cancer cohorts with EGFR-TKIs treatment were studied. Statin use was associated with a reduced risk of death (HR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.54-0.62, p < 0.001). In addition, statin use was associated with a significantly longer median progression-free survival (8.3 months, 95% CI: 7.6-8.9 vs. 6.1 months, 95% CI: 6.0-6.4, p < 0.001) and median overall survival (35.5 months, 95% CI: 33.8-38.1 vs. 23.9 months, 95% CI: 23.4-24.7, p < 0.001). In conclusion, statins might potentially enhance the therapeutic effect and increase survival in patients with lung cancer receiving EGFR-TKI therapy.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e0171137 |
Journal | PLoS ONE |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 02 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 Hung et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.