A daily dose of cholesterol lowering drug could also cut the risk of breast cancer returning, found a new research. The study found that women who had developed a breast were thirty percent less prone to undergo a relapse if they took simvastatin, a form of statin.
The research suggested that levels of high cholesterol could be the key aspect in the growth of breast cancer. A team of US and Danish researchers, observed about nineteen thousand Danish women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1996 and 2003. They followed those women for seven years to perceive if they suffered a recurrence.
The research team also found if those women had taken statins. They found that women those taking simvastatin were thirty percent less prone to see their tumour return in comparison to those who had taken no form of statin. Simvastatin belongs to a class of drugs called as lipophilic statins, means they dissolve easily in fat.
However, women who took another class of statins called as hydrophilic statins had shown little or no diminution in risk of breast cancer reoccurrence. The results are promising enough to call for a large clinical trial to see if statins could be routinely used to treat breast cancer, explained lead researcher Dr Thomas Ahern from Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Meantime, doctors prescribing statins to breast cancer survivors should support simvastatin over other types. All statins work by attacking the enzyme that produces low density lipoproteins or bad cholesterol that can form fatty deposits in the arteries. But they are classified as either water or fat soluble depending on how they are absorbed by the body.
Researchers believe that fat-soluble statins enter cell membranes without any difficulty. Statins which are more fat soluble may for some reason have a more powerful effect in terms of keeping cancer at bay. The study findings were reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Simvastatin is available by the brand names Ranzolont, Simvador and Zocor.
Doctors should prescribe statins to those whose chance of having a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack in the next ten years is twenty percent or higher, recommends the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
source :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health