NSAIDs against cancer December 1, 2006
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Invention, Medicine, science.trackback
NSAIDs, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, reduce pain, fever and inflammation. These drugs are usually used in the treatment of acute or chronic painful conditions where inflammation is present.
But recently, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has started researches on using NSAIDs for prevention of colon, esophageal or lung cancer.
Paul Limburg, M.D., M.P.H., Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist and lead researcher on the colon cancer prevention study says:
While searching for the cure is important, even more so is finding effective ways to prevent cancer…We have observed that some of the same biological processes that cause inflammation may also be involved in developing cancer, so the next step was to see if drugs that prevent inflammation also serve to lessen the risk of cancer… Prognosis for esophageal cancer patients is poor. We are continually looking for ways to prevent this and other cancers from ever starting, and NSAIDs provide a promising avenue for our research.
So the main goal is not the therapy, but the prevention. There are other publications about the possible role of prostaglandin E2 in cancer progression, and as NSAIDs and cyclooxigenase-2 selective inhibitors inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis, these could be used in reducing cancer risk.
References:
- What cures your aches might prevent cancer (scienceblog.com)
- NSAIDs and Cancer Prevention: Targets Downstream of COX-2 (Annual Review of Medicine)
The problem, though, is that even though a decreased incidence of cancer prevention has been demonstrated by several studies, there also seems to be an unacceptably higher risk of cardiovascular events. Perhaps one of these may find a role in one of the hereditary colon cancer syndromes, but I’m not optimistic that any current agents will be able to be used in people with normal or mildly elevated risk.
I agree, in 10-20 years, there won’t be any change on that project… But seems to be a good try.