Statins and prostate cancer risk: A large case control study in veterans

1004 Background: Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins)are commonly used to control high cholesterol. These agents that have been shown to induce apoptosis and inhibiting tumour growth and metastasis in human cancer cell lines and animal tumour models. We studied the association of prostate cancer and statins in veterans. Methods: VISN 16 data warehouse, which contains clinical and demographic information about all veterans (>1.4 million patients) cared for at the 10 VA Medical Centers in 4 states comprising the South Central VA health Care Network in the mid-south region of the US, was queried from Oct 1998 to June 2004. Retrospective case control design was used. The primary variable of interest was prostate cancer (ICD-9 code 185) and the use of statins prior to the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to adjust for covariates including age, body mass index, smoking, diabetes, and race. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS software v...