Executive Summary

"The opportunity to conduct placebo-controlled statin trials may soon disappear" due to trends toward broader statin use in the U.S. and UK populations, Ernest Hawk, MD, and Jaye Viner, MD, National Cancer Institute, state in a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Current treatment guidelines specify the use of statin therapy in patients at high risk for cardiovascular disease, but placebo-controlled testing against a variety of end points could still be ethically conducted in populations at average risk," the authors maintain. The editorial accompanies a study by Jenny Poynter, University of Michigan, et al., linking statins including Zocor (simvastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin) to a significantly reduced relative risk of colorectal cancer...