Statins and the risk of pancreatic cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 2,797,186 patients

Background: Statin use in many studies is related to the improvement of a patients’ condition including reducing the risk of various malignancies. Herein, is a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the evidence on the association between statin therapy and the risk of the occurrence of pancreatic cancer, mainly in terms of decreased risk of developing pancreatic cancer among patients using statin therapy in the long-term perspective. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were searched from database inception to December 1 st , 2021. Random effect models were used to estimate summary odds ratios (OR) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: A total of 26 studies comprising 2,797,186 patients were included. Polled analysis showed that pancreatic cancer occurrence in statin vs. no-statin group varied and amounted to 0.4% vs. 0.6% (RR = 0.83; 95% CI: 0.72–0.96; I 2 = 84%; p = 0.01). Conclusions: In summary, the present analysis shows that overall statins use is significantly associated with a reduction in risk of pancreatic cancer. However, these results were not confirmed for the randomized controlled trial subgroup. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm the current results.