Annual Scientific Meeting
Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary tumor of the liver resulting in approximately 800,000 deaths around the world every year. A growing body of research investigating statin use and HCC risk has shown conflicting results. We examined the association between statin use and risk of HCC utilizing all the available high-quality literature, aiming to provide a quality synthesis of current evidence of statin impact on HCC risk.
Methods: We performed a comprehensive literature search in PubMed, PubMed Central, Embase, and ScienceDirect databases from inception through May of 2019 to identify all studies that evaluated the association between statin use and new HCC development. We included studies that presented an odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) or presented data sufficient to calculate the OR with a 95% CI. Statistical analysis was performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA), Version 3 software and a Forrest plot was generated. Publication bias was assisted for using conventional techniques.
Results: Twenty studies (3 randomized controlled trials, 7 cohorts and 11 case–controls) with a total of 2,668,497 patients including 24,341 cases of HCC. Studies and patients’ characteristics are summarized in tables 1 and 2, respectively. Our findings indicate a significant risk reduction of HCC among all statin users with a pooled OR of 0.57 (95% CI: 0.49 – 0.66, P< 0.05, I2= 86.57%) compared to non-users. (Figure 1 A) No publication bias was found using Egger’s regression test or on visual inspection of the generated Funnel plot. (Figure 1B).
Discussion: Our results indicate that statin use was associated with 43% lower risk of HCC compared to those who did not use statin. Further prospective randomized research is needed to confirm this association.