Statins Not Tied to Cognitive Decline in Patients Receiving Doxorubicin

FRIDAY, Oct. 31, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For patients with lymphoma or breast cancer receiving doxorubicin therapy, receipt of statins is not associated with worsening cognitive function over 24 months, according to a study published online Oct. 21 in JAMA Network Open.

Pamela J. Grizzard, from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond, and colleagues examined the association of statins with attention, verbal fluency, and executive function in patients receiving doxorubicin for cancer in a secondary analysis of the Preventing Anthracycline Cardiovascular Toxicity With Statins randomized clinical trial. The analysis included 238 participants with stage I to IV lymphoma or stage I to III breast cancer who were randomly assigned to the statin or placebo groups (118 and 120, respectively).

The researchers found that the statin and placebo groups had similar values for the Trail Making Test part A (TMT-A) at six months (mean, 32.5 and 28.4 seconds, respectively) and 24 months (mean, 29.8 and 27.8 seconds, respectively). From before treatment to 24 months after treatment, there was a significant mean improvement of 10.2 seconds in TMT-B with statins compared with a nonsignificant improvement of 0.2 seconds with placebo. In the same period, the placebo and statin groups showed a mean improvement of 3.62 and 4.74 points in the Controlled Oral Word Association scores, with no difference between the groups.

“The study found no evidence of statin-associated cognitive decline in primarily educated White women over 24 months after receiving anthracycline-based chemotherapy for lymphoma or breast cancer,” the authors write.

Two authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Abstract/Full Text