March 24th, 2011

Jefferson University Hospitals reports:

Thomas Jefferson University has started recruiting patients for a new National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsoredCancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored clinical trial to test whether the cholesterol-reducing drug rosuvastatin is effective in the prevention of recurrent colon cancer.

Previous laboratory research and population studies have shown that patients taking statins, the class of drugs that lowers cholesterol, had fewer colon polyps, which can lead to cancer if left untreated. However, those findings come largely from retrospective, observational studies originally designed to investigate lipid-lowering or cardiovascular endpoints in the short term rather than tumor endpoints.

Read the full story: Jefferson Clinical Trial: Can a Cholesterol Drug Prevent Colon Cancer?