Despite earlier indications that people taking statins might have a reduced risk of developing melanoma, a large new study of women finds the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs do nothing to prevent the deadly skin cancer. “For primary prevention (of melanoma) I think we’re putting the nail into the coffin of that theory,” said Dr. Robert Dellavalle, chief of dermatology at the Denver VA Medical Center, who was not involved in the new research. To help resolve these discrepancies, Dr. Michael Simon, a researcher at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and his colleagues looked to the massive Women’s Health Initiative study, which has tracked about 120,000 women for more than a decade. The researchers compared roughly 8,800 white women who took a statin medication to 111,000 white women who did not. They found 89 cases of melanoma among the statin users and 1,111 cases among the non-users during a 12-year period. That translated to identical rates of melanoma in each group – nine cases a year for every 10,000 women.
Read more: Reuters