Statins and pancreatic cancer risk in patients with chronic pancreatitis: A Danish nationwide population‐based cohort study.

Statins (HMG‐CoA reductase inhibitors) have antiinflammatory and possibly anticancer properties. We hypothesized that statin use is associated with lower risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with chronic pancreatitis. This nationwide population‐based cohort study included all Danish patients diagnosed with incident chronic pancreatitis from 1 January 1996 to 31 December 2012. We used the Danish National Prescription Registry to ascertain information on statin prescriptions for members of the study population before and after their pancreatitis diagnosis. We computed crude incidence rates, incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) with associated 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for pancreatic cancer, comparing statin users with nonusers. We computed HRs using Cox proportional hazards regression with statins treated as a time‐varying exposure lagged by 1 year, adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic status and individual comorbidities. The study included 8,311 chronic pancreatitis patients with a median age of 54 years. We observed 153 pancreatic cancers during 60,365 person‐years of follow‐up. The unadjusted IRR comparing statin users with nonusers was 1.00 (95% CI: 0.60–1.60). Adjustment for potential confounders only had a small impact on the estimate (adjusted HR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.56–1.44). Our findings suggest that statin use is not associated with pancreatic cancer risk in patients with chronic pancreatitis. What's new? Statins are widely‐used cholesterol‐lowering drugs that have anti‐inflammatory and possibly anti‐cancer properties. However, the association between statin use and pancreatic cancer risk in patients with chronic pancreatitis remains unclear. In the present nationwide population‐based cohort study of 8,311 chronic pancreatitis patients, the authors found little evidence of an association between statin use during the course of chronic pancreatitis and the risk of pancreatic cancer. The null finding, which was robust in several sensitivity analyses, underlines that prevention of pancreatic cancer in patients with chronic pancreatitis is still a major challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]