Trial reportCancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.)2014
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial of lovastatin for various endpoints of melanoma pathobiology.
Trial report in Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy and safety profile of statins in patients with cancer: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2020Pooled it
- Multicenter, Phase III, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Pravastatin Added to First-Line Standard Chemotherapy in Small-Cell Lung Cancer (LUNGSTAR).Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2017Trial
- Molecular and Immunomodulatory Mechanisms of Statins in Inflammation and Cancer Therapeutics with Emphasis on the NF-κB, NLRP3 Inflammasome, and Cytokine Regulatory Axes.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Updates in clinical trial-explored chemopreventive agents for cutaneous melanoma: mechanisms affecting melanocytes.Melanoma management · 2025Review
- Statin use does not impact sentinel lymph node metastasis and recurrence in melanoma patients: an 844-patient retrospective study.International journal of dermatology · 2025Article
- Review
- Metabolic modelling-based in silico drug target prediction identifies six novel repurposable drugs for melanoma.Cell death & disease · 2023Article
- The role of cholesterol metabolism in tumor therapy, from bench to bed.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Review
- Low-Dose Atorvastatin has Promoting Effect on Melanoma Tumor Growth and Angiogenesis in Mouse Model.Advanced biomedical research · 2023Article
- Suppression of CaThe EMBO journal · 2022Article
- Beyond Lipid-Lowering: Effects of Statins on Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases and Cancer.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Shared Gene Expression and Immune Pathway Changes Associated with Progression from Nevi to Melanoma.Cancers · 2021Article
- Computational Drug Repositioning Identifies Statins as Modifiers of Prognostic Genetic Expression Signatures and Metastatic Behavior in Melanoma.The Journal of investigative dermatology · 2021Article
- Repurposing old drugs as new inhibitors of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway for cancer treatment.Seminars in cancer biology · 2021Review
- Review
- Vitamin D signaling and melanoma: role of vitamin D and its receptors in melanoma progression and management.Laboratory investigation; a journal of technical methods and pathology · 2017Review
- Molecular cancer prevention: Current status and future directions.CA: a cancer journal for cliniciansReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
On the basis of large cardiovascular clinical trials of lipid-lowering agents that showed a considerable decrease in the incidence of primary melanomas in the active agent arm, we have carried out a randomized, double-blind clinical trial examining the impact of lovastatin on various biomarkers of melanoma pathogenesis. Subjects with at least two clinically atypical nevi were randomized to receive oral lovastatin or placebo for a 6-month period. Clinical, histopathologic, and molecular biomarkers were evaluated for change in the two groups. Eighty subjects were randomized, evaluable, and included in the analyses. Lovastatin showed no benefit in comparison with placebo in the primary endpoint of decreasing the level of histopathologic atypia, nor in any of the secondary endpoints of decreasing clinical atypia, impact on nevus number, nor in showing significant changes in any of the molecular biomarkers. There were no significant differences in adverse event profiles for lovastatin compared with placebo. The lovastatin arm did show a significant and considerable decrease in total serum cholesterol and serum low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels compared with placebo, an expected result. This finding bolsters confidence in subject compliance. Given the results of this trial, it is concluded that if lovastatin were to lower the incidence of melanoma, it would appear not to be doing so by reversing atypia of precursor atypical nevi over the 6-month time frame studied. Further research into the pathogenesis of melanoma and in other potential chemopreventive agents is needed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.