Statins: A Possible Treatment or Prevention Strategy for Ovarian Cancer [18J

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Twenty-one thousand women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer yearly and fourteen thousand annually die from it. A promising drug-class with the potential to treat and prevent ovarian cancer is statins. One likely mechanism under investigation on statin’s anti-cancer properties is by inhibition of cell proliferation, migration and invasion through inhibition of Rho-A and Rho-C GTPases. METHODS: In a cohort of women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) at Hershey Medical Center, we compared cases on statin therapy at diagnosis to age and stage matched controls without statin use. Tissue pathology was immunohistochemically (IHC) stained for Rho-A and Rho-C. Tissue samples were examined under high resolution microscopy. Exact Mantel-Haenszel Chi-Square Test was used to analyze staining differences for Rho-A and Rho-C between cases and controls and between early stage disease (I-II) and advance stage disease (III-IV). Tissue sample stains were graded blindly and given a score and intensity. RESULTS: We identified 12 cases and 16 controls in an attempted 1:2 matching. There were no difference in score and intensity for Rho-C between cases and controls, nor between early and advanced stage disease. Differential IHC staining score was identified for Rho-A between cases and controls but no significant difference between the two groups. CONCLUSION: EOC stains for Rho-A and Rho-C, and Rho-A is differentially expressed in EOC. We were unable to find a significant difference in staining likely due to the small sample size. There remains strong potential for refashioning statins to treat and prevent deadly EOC and warrants further investigation.