Brain metastasis predicts a worse clinical outcome in cancer patients. Emerging observational evidence suggests that statin use has a protective role in overall cancer prevention. Whether statin use could also be a supplementary treatment for advanced-stage cancers remains under researched and controversial. Data for cancer patients with brain metastasis were selected from the linked electronic medical care records of the West China Hospital between October 2010 and July 2019. Fisher’s exact chi-square test was used to compare the differences between cohorts. Multivariate Cox analysis was conducted to adjust the potential confounders in evaluating the role of statin use in the overall survival (OS) of cancer patients with brain metastasis. There were 4510 brain metastatic patients included in this retrospective study. The overall statin use rate in our patients was 5.28% (219 cases/4510 cases). Compared with the non-statin use cohort, patients who received statin therapy showed a decreased Karnofsky performance score (KPS, p < 0.001) and lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL, p = 0.020) but higher body mass index (BMI, p = 0.002) and triglyceride (TG, p < 0.001) at admission. There was no association between statin use and the OS of the cancer patients with brain metastasis (Hazard ratio (HR) = 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.73−1.07, p = 0.213) during the univariate analysis. However, after adjusting for baseline patient characteristics, metabolism indicators, and cancer-specific factors, statin use was shown to have a significant protective role, aiding the survival of the cancer patients with brain metastasis (adjustHR = 0.82, 95%CI: 0.69−0.99, p = 0.034). Our results highlight that statin use shows significant survival benefits in cancer patients with brain metastasis. However, future research is needed to validate our findings.
Keywords: brain metastasis; cancer; overall survival; risk factor; statin.