Introduction: The statins, which are cholesterol-lowering drugs, has increased significantly during the last decade. In this study, we investigate the effect of statins on serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and prostate volume in Korean men diagnosed as BPH.
Materials and methods: We analyzed BPH patients in our institution from January 2010 to June 2010 retrospectively. We excluded 46 men who had abnormal serum PSA level (≥4 ng/mL), history of prostate surgery or who were taking prostate related medication. A total of 200 patients were enrolled in this study and divided into two groups according to the use of statin. We compared age, serum PSA, prostate volume measured by transrectal ultrasonography of prostate, underling diseases between two groups. We also analyzed the correlation between statin use and PV, PSA using multivariate regression analysis including confounding factors such as age, hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), cardiovascular disease (CVD), total cholesterol (TC), and aspirin use.
Results: The mean age, serum PSA, PV were 63.80± 6.37 years, 2.49±2.18 ng/mL, 34.15±11.28 cc, respectively. The mean period of statin use in statin group (n=53) was 10.34±3.50 months. The mean serum PSA level showed significant difference between statin group (1.60± 1.94 ng/mL) and non-statin group (2.80±2.58 ng/mL)
Conclusions: Statin use was not correlated with PV but showed significantly lower serum PSA in this study. It may be necessary to determine a different PSA cut-off level for patients taking statin medication.
