Painkillers Tablets To Prevent Cancer

Painkillers Tablets To Prevent Cancer.
The remedy painkiller Celebrex might helper prevent non-melanoma skin cancers, a small study suggests. But one pro was quick to note that the drug, which is most commonly used to counter the pain of arthritis, has been linked in some studies to an enhancement in the risk for cardiovascular problems. So it isn't yet clear that Celebrex (celecoxib) is an ideal hand-picked to prevent cancers that could be treated by other means. "We have a lot of different treatments for non-melanoma skin cancers," notable Dr Doris Day, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "I would want more message regarding the mechanism of action of Celebrex, because of the other risks".

The report, funded by the US National Cancer Institute and Pfizer, the maker of Celebrex, is published in the Nov 29, 2010 online version and the Dec 15, 2010 phrasing issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Non-melanoma crust cancers are common, comprising "the most prevalent malignancies in the United States with an amount equivalent to all other cancers combined," according to study lead author Dr Craig A Elmets, a professor of dermatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. These tumors comprise basal stall and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin, which are typically linked to overexposure to UV rays from the Sunna or indoor tanning booths.

Currently, there are no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved agents for the fending of non-melanoma skin cancers, although sunscreens are widely recommended for this purpose. "However, even sunscreens are only modestly operative at preventing non-melanoma skin cancers. The elucidation that celecoxib can prevent these common malignancies heralds an entirely new approach for the prevention of these normal malignancies".

For the study, Elmets and colleagues randomly assigned 240 people with precancerous pelt lesions called actinic keratoses to treatment with Celebrex or placebo. The researchers looked at the loads of new lesions after three, six and nine months of treatment, and again two months after therapy had stopped. The investigators found that the number of new precancerous lesions in both groups was the same.

However, by the end of the study, patients taking Celebrex had a 59 percent crop risk for non-melanoma skin cancers, compared with patients receiving placebo. However, the learning was stopped early after the FDA found that commonalty in another trial that involved a similar drug had an increased risk for heart attacks. There were no such problems in this trial, the researchers noted, it is possible that because the trial lasted only nine months.

In an editorial, Drs Frank Meyskens Jr and Christine McLaren, both of the University of California, Irvine, said that the pronouncement that Celebrex helped tone down cancers but not precancerous lesions suggests that different mechanisms may be at creation during different stages of tumor development. Celebrex is one of a class of drugs called COX-2 inhibitors, which also embody Bextra (valdecoxib) and Vioxx (rofecoxib). Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in 2004 and Bextra in 2005 because studies had suggested users faced heightened risks for goodness attack. Celebrex did not show such a lay waste of heightened risk and has remained on the market.

Commenting on the new study, Day said that even though she would not exhort that people take Celebrex for the sole aim of preventing skin cancer, it could prove an additional help for people who are already taking the drug to battle their arthritis pain. "But for me it wouldn't be a first-line medication for people who have non-melanoma skin cancers, because of the other options and the cardiac risks" does canada use the meld score for liver transplants. In the future this downer may be useful, at a lower dose, for preventing these cancers while avoiding the cardiac risk but "I don't deem this is ready for recommendation as a preventive for non-melanoma skin cancers".