The significance of
statin treatment for the reduction of cardiovascular (CV) disease has been reported, whereas other reports have also described anti-
cancer properties associated with the class effect of
statins. However, the differences in anti-
cancer effect of various types of
statins have rarely been examined.
Pitavastatin is a
statin with a different chemical structure and pharmacokinetics from other
statins, and the mechanism of the specific anti-
cancer effect of
pitavastatin has been reported in in vivo therapeutic models. We previously revealed that
pitavastatin therapy was superior to
atorvastatin therapy in the prevention of CV events, despite similar
LDL-cholesterol-lowering effect in the TOHO
Lipid Intervention Trial Using
Pitavastatin (TOHO-LIP). Furthermore, in subgroup analysis of the TOHO-LIP study, cumulative 240-week incidence of new
cancer cases tended to be lower in the
pitavastatin group compared to the
atorvastatin group [0.32% (1/312) vs 1.94% (6/310), log-rank P=0.051]. This finding might reveal the superiority of
pitavastatin to prevent
carcinogenesis. The molecular mechanism by which
pitavastatin suppresses the incidence of any-organ
cancer is gradually elucidated, and new combination of
cancer treatments with
pitavastatin will be developed in the future to further enhance the anti-
cancer activity and reduce the side effects.