Statins usually ok if you’re being treated for lymphoma

Cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, are a growing market of medications as patients struggle to keep their cholesterol levels under control if diet and lifestyle changes don’t work on their own. Some of these drugs are Lipitor, Zocor, Parvachol, Lescol, Mevacor and Crestor. People with lymphoma are no different. According to statistics, about 20% of people with lymphoma are also taking some sort of statin.

There was a concern that the statins could affect the most common type of treatment for lyphoma, rituximab (Rituxan), which can be used alone or in combination with another chemotherapy drug. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found no reason to believe that statins would decrease the effectiveness of rituximab and, in some cases, they may have helped the treatment somewhat.

According to a press release issued by the Mayo Clinic:

Statins did not impinge treatment effectiveness for either group of patients. For patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, statin use did not influence outcomes. Those with follicular lymphoma who took statins fared better than patients who didn’t. At two years, 80 percent of those taking statins had no progression or re-treatment for their cancer versus 69 percent of those not taking statins. Dr. Nowakowski said these are early results and further validation in additional cohorts of patients is needed. This positive effect was seen regardless of the treatment approach for the lymphoma. Treatments included observation only, rituximab alone or rituximab in combination with chemotherapy medications.

This should be encouraging news for many people.

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Tags: cancer blog, rituximab, rituxan, statins and lymphoma, lymphoma, statin use, lipitor, zocar, crestor