Are statins onco- suppressive agents for every type of tumor? A systematic review of literature

Introduction: Statins, in the role of anti-cancer agents, have been used in many types of cancers with results in some cases promising while, in others, disappointing. Areas covered: The purpose of this review is to identify and highlight data from literature on the successes or failure of using statins as anti-cancer agents. We asked ourselves the following two questions: 1. Could statins, which are taken mostly to reduce cardiovascular risk, guarantee a lower incidence or a better cancer disease prognosis, concerning local recurrence, metastasis or mortality? 2. Does statins intake (before and/or after cancer diagnosis) improve the prognosis or increase the chemotherapeutic action when combined with other anticancer therapies? For the first question twenty-seven manuscripts have been selected, for the second one, twenty-eight. Expert opinion: There are data which correlate statins with a possible tumor suppressive action among the following cancers: breast, lung, prostate and head and neck. Lastly, for gastric cancer and colorectal there is no evidence of a correlation. The onco-suppressive efficacy of statins is mainly related to the histopathological and/or molecular characteristics of the tumor cells, which have different characteristics.