Study Reveals Low Rate of Side Effects with Statins in Patients with Kidney Cancer

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In a recent study, researchers looked at statins and survival outcomes, along with potential side effects, in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

In a recent study, researchers looked at statins, which are commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol, and survival outcomes in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Statins can commonly cause myalgia, general aches in the muscles, says Rana McKay, of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and who was involved with the study.

In McKay's analysis, statin users demonstrated an overall survival of 25.6 months compared with 18.9 months for non-users. This improvement was seen among patients receiving targeted therapy called VEGF or mTOR inhibitors. However, no benefit was seen among patients receiving interferon or cytokine-based therapies. Because of this, statin use may be synergistic with certain targeted therapies, but the potential side effects were a concern.

"In the severe setting, [they] can actually cause inflammation in the muscles," she says. "Additionally, statins can cause liver dysfunction, and so, especially in use with these targeted agents, liver function tests need to be performed regularly."

Results of the analysis found that the rate of inflammation of the muscles and elevated liver markers were low and similar between patients receiving statins and those who did not.

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For patients with cancer, the ongoing chemotherapy shortage may cause some anxiety as they wonder how they will receive their drugs. However, measuring drugs “down to the minutiae of the milligrams” helped patients receive the drugs they needed, said Alison Tray. Tray is an advanced oncology certified nurse practitioner and current vice president of ambulatory operations at Rutgers Cancer Institute in New Jersey. If patients are concerned about getting their cancer drugs, Tray noted that having “an open conversation” between patients and providers is key. “As a provider and a nurse myself, having that conversation, that reassurance and sharing the information is a two-way conversation,” she said. “So just knowing that we're taking care of you, we're going to make sure that you receive the care that you need is the key takeaway.” In June 2023, many patients were unable to receive certain chemotherapy drugs, such as carboplatin and cisplatin because of an ongoing shortage. By October 2023, experts saw an improvement, although the “ongoing crisis” remained. READ MORE: Patients With Lung Cancer Face Unmet Needs During Drug Shortages “We’re really proud of the work that we could do and achieve that through a critical drug shortage,” Tray said. “None of our patients missed a dose of chemotherapy and we were able to provide that for them.” Tray sat down with CURE® during the 49th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Annual Congress to discuss the ongoing chemo shortage and how patients and care teams approached these challenges. Transcript: Particularly at Hartford HealthCare, when we established this infrastructure, our goal was to make sure that every patient would get the treatment that they need and require, utilizing the data that we have from ASCO guidelines to ensure that we're getting the optimal high-quality standard of care in a timely fashion that we didn't have to delay therapies. So, we were able to do that by going down to the minutiae of the milligrams on hand, particularly when we had a lot of critical drug shortages. So it was really creating that process to really ensure that every patient would get the treatment that they needed. For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.
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