Painkillers Tablets To Prevent Cancer

Painkillers Tablets To Prevent Cancer.
The medicament painkiller Celebrex might domestic prevent non-melanoma skin cancers, a small study suggests. But one dab hand 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 extend in the risk for cardiovascular problems. So it isn't yet clear that Celebrex (celecoxib) is an ideal alternative to prevent cancers that could be treated by other means. "We have a lot of different treatments for non-melanoma skin cancers," well-known Dr Doris Day, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "I would want more advice 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 issue and the Dec 15, 2010 lithograph issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Non-melanoma coating cancers are common, comprising "the most prevalent malignancies in the United States with an frequency 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 take in basal chamber and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin, which are typically linked to overexposure to UV rays from the Sol or indoor tanning booths.

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

For the study, Elmets and colleagues randomly assigned 240 people with precancerous integument lesions called actinic keratoses to treatment with Celebrex or placebo. The researchers looked at the crowd of new lesions after three, six and nine months of treatment, and again two months after remedying 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 discredit risk for non-melanoma skin cancers, compared with patients receiving placebo. However, the haunt was stopped early after the FDA found that relatives 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, peradventure 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 discovery that Celebrex helped modify cancers but not precancerous lesions suggests that different mechanisms may be at deal with during different stages of tumor development. Celebrex is one of a class of drugs called COX-2 inhibitors, which also subsume 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 consideration attack. Celebrex did not show such a draw a bead of heightened risk and has remained on the market.

Commenting on the new study, Day said that even though she would not forward that people take Celebrex for the sole aim of preventing skin cancer, it could prove an additional improve for people who are already taking the drug to battle their arthritis pain. "But for me it wouldn't be a first-line medicine for people who have non-melanoma skin cancers, because of the other options and the cardiac risks" ill never smoke weed with willey again. In the future this stupefy may be useful, at a lower dose, for preventing these cancers while avoiding the cardiac risk but "I don't judge this is ready for recommendation as a preventive for non-melanoma skin cancers".