Role of Statin on the Gastric Inflammation in Patients at High Risk of Gastric Cancer
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2018-06-19
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Statins are commonly used as cholesterol-lowering medications and have shown effectiveness in
the primary and secondary prevention of heart attack and stroke. In addition, several recent
studies of human cancer cell lines and animal tumor models indicate that statins may have
chemopreventive properties through the arresting of cell-cycle progression. The
chemopreventive effect of statins was demonstrated in some kind of human tumors including
colorectal cancer. In addition, recent one large epidemiologic study showed that statins
decreased risk of gastric cancer. On the other hands, it has been well known that
Helicobacter pylori infection induces gastric atrophy and intestinal metaplasia, which are
premalignant lesions of gastric cancer. Progression of these premalignant lesions could be
limited by H. pylori eradication. In addition, a recent double blind randomization study
revealed that simvastatin as adjuvant to standard therapy improves significantly the H.
pylori eradication rate. Therefore, investigators conjecture that statins may have an
adjuvant role for inhibition of gastric carcinogenesis. investigators aim to evaluate the
role of statins in gastric carcinogenesis by observing the changes of gastric inflammation
under statins.