It is the third leading cause of cancer deaths, causing more than 700,000 deaths each year.
A study conducted by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NIH) has found that non-statin cholesterol drugs may be able to reduce the risk of liver cancer.
American Cancer Society cancer, Researchers looked at the association between five non-dyslipid cholesterol-lowering drugs and liver cancer risk.
Liver cancer is responsible for more than 700,000 deaths each year, making it the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.
Non-statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as cholesterol absorption inhibitors, bile acid sequestrants, fibrates, niacin, and omega-3 fatty acids, each work in a different way and are prescribed to manage cholesterol and lipid levels.
The researchers used information from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, which covers around 7% of the UK population, and analysed 3,719 liver cancer patients and 14,876 cancer-free controls.
Additional matching was also done based on patients’ type 2 diabetes and chronic liver disease status.
In their overall analysis, the researchers found that use of cholesterol absorption inhibitors was associated with a 31% reduced odds of liver cancer risk, and use of statins was associated with a 35% reduced odds.
Furthermore, these medications were associated with a reduced risk of liver cancer in analyses based on diabetes and liver disease status, whereas no associations were found for fibrates, omega-3 fatty acids, and niacin, and bile acid sequestrant use was associated with an increased risk of liver cancer in the overall analysis.
“Our results need to be replicated in other populations, but if our findings are confirmed in other studies, our findings may inform liver cancer prevention research,” said Dr. Katherine McGlynn, senior investigator in the NIH Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.
Prior to this, in June study The Oxford Population Health Scotland Non-Proliferative Retinopathy Risk Reduction trial demonstrated that the cholesterol-lowering drug fenofibrate may help reduce the risk of retinopathy, an eye disease, in people with diabetes.
