Prasai K, et al. - Whether the use of aspirin (ASA) or statin impacts risk of gallbladder cancer (GBC, was investigated. Findings revealed a reduced risk of GBC in correlation with aspirin use, but no risk reduction was seen in relation to the use of a statin.

Methods

• Researchers identified patients with GBC diagnosed between 2000 and 2016 at Mayo Clinic, and identified matched controls 2:1 for age, gender and country of residence from patients who had cholecystectomy at Mayo Clinic.
• They used Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables and Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables and compared baseline characteristics between cases and controls.
• The association of ASA or statin use with GBC was assessed by calculating the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using binomial logistic regression.
• As covariates, history of cholelithiasis, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia (HCL), hypertension (HTN), hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cirrhosis and statin or ASA use was included in the logistic regression model.

Results

• They ultimately analyzed 633 cases and 1,266 controls, with 67 years being the median age at diagnosis.
• A significantly (p < 0.05) higher proportion of patients with cholelithiasis, HCL, HTN, hypothyroidism and liver cirrhosis were identified in the control group vs patients.
• A significantly higher proportion of patients with PSC and IBD were identified in the patient group.
• In univariate analysis, a lower risk of GBC (p < 0.001) was observed in association with ASA (OR: 0.41; 95% CI: 0.33-0.52) or statin (OR: 0.48; 95% CI: 0.38-0.60) use.
• However, a lower risk of GBC was reported in relation to ASA use (OR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.41-0.67, p < 0.001) but not with statin use (OR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.56-1.03, p = 0.08) in multivariate analysis.