Statins for Cancer: Still Uncertain

Statins: still in pursuit of pleotrophic effects.

Statins have long been known to have multiple pleotrophic effects, those beyond lowering cholesterol alone. These additional benefits of statins (i.e., inflammation reduction, plaque stabilization, endothelial function improvement) have most likely been partially responsible for the cardiovascular benefits of this class of agents. Inflammation substudies from 2 secondary prevention trials—PROVE...

Statins for heart failure: still caught in no man's land?

Statins are well-known for their ability to lower serum cholesterol levels, but have properties beyond mere cholesterol reduction, including an improvement in endothelial dysfunction, release of endothelial progenitor cells, anti-inflammatory properties and a number of antitumour activities. In the present issue of Clinical Science, Stumpf et al. show that a 4-week treatment course with the lip...

Statins and cancer development.

There is epidemiologic evidence that the hydrophilic 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitor pravastatin increases the incidence of some extrahepatic cancers, although this finding has been attributed to chance. We hypothesize that pravastatin is able to promote the development of cancer by causing an induction of HMG-CoA reductase and, hence, mevalonate synthesis in extrah...

Statins: A New Hope for Cancer Therapy

3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase is the key enzyme in cholesterol synthesis. Statins are used in treatment of hypercholesterolemia as inhibitors of HMG-CoA reductase. Cancer cells overexpress HMG-CoA reductase enzyme. Recent studies have demonstrated that statins may inhibit the proliferation of human breast cancer cells. Statins have proangiogenic effects in low therapeutic c...

Delayed encephalopathy after carbon monoxide intoxication: prognosis is still uncertain.