Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Which statins work best against canine oral melanoma cells
By Ishikawa, Takuro et al.·Published in Veterinary and comparative oncology·2024·Department of Anatomy, Japan·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Comparison of the anticancer effects of various statins on canine oral melanoma cells.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study found that different types of cholesterol-lowering medications called statins can have varying effects on canine oral melanoma, a serious type of mouth cancer in dogs. Researchers tested several statins and discovered that lipophilic statins, like pitavastatin, were much more effective at killing cancer cells than hydrophilic statins, such as rosuvastatin. In fact, pitavastatin required a much lower dose to achieve its anticancer effects. This suggests that pitavastatin could be the best choice for treating dogs with oral melanoma, potentially improving their prognosis.
People also search for: dog oral melanoma treatment · best statin for dog cancer · pitavastatin for canine melanoma
Abstract
Canine oral melanoma is a highly malignant cancer with a poor prognosis. Statins, commonly used drugs for treating dyslipidemia, exhibit pleiotropic anticancer effects and marked anti-proliferative effects against melanoma cells. The anticancer effects among statins vary; in human cancers, lipophilic statins have shown stronger anticancer effects compared with hydrophilic statins. However, data on the differences in the effects of various statins on canine cancer cells are lacking, hence the optimal statins for treating canine melanoma remain unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the most effective statin by comparing the anticancer effects of hydrophilic rosuvastatin and lipophilic atorvastatin, simvastatin, fluvastatin and pitavastatin on three canine oral melanoma cell lines. Time-dependent measurement of cell confluence showed that lipophilic statins had a stronger anti-proliferative effect on all cell lines than hydrophilic rosuvastatin. Quantification of lactate dehydrogenase release, an indicator of cytotoxicity, showed that lipophilic statins more effectively induced cell death than hydrophilic rosuvastatin. Lipophilic statins affected both inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of cell death. The anticancer effects of statins on canine oral melanoma cells differed in the following ascending order of ICvalues: pitavastatin < fluvastatin = simvastatin < atorvastatin < rosuvastatin. The required concentration of pitavastatin was approximately 1/20th that of rosuvastatin. Among the statins used in this study, pitavastatin had the highest anticancer effect. Our results suggest lipophilic pitavastatin as the optimal statin for treating canine oral melanoma.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38044042/