Beta Blockers May Also Help Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer

Beta Blockers May Also Help Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer.
New analysis suggests that beta blockers, medications that are hand-me-down to control blood persuasion and heart rhythms, may also help lung cancer patients live longer. The researchers found that patients with non-small-cell lung cancer being treated with dispersal lived 22 percent longer if they were also taking these drugs. "These findings were the first, to our knowledge, demonstrating a survival further associated with the use of beta blockers and diffusion therapy for lung cancer," said lead researcher Dr Daniel Gomez, an helper professor in the department of radiation oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

So "The results mean that there may be another mechanism, largely unexplored, that could potentially demote the rates of tumor spread in patients with this very aggressive disease". The piece was published Jan 9, 2013 in the Annals of Oncology. For the study, Gomez's rig compared the outcomes of more than 700 patients undergoing radiation therapy for lung cancer.

The investigators found that the 155 patients taking beta blockers for tenderness problems lived an average of almost two years, compared with an middling of 18,6 months for patients not taking these drugs. The findings held even after adjusting for other factors such as age, station of the disease, whether or not chemotherapy was given at the same time, presence of chronic obstructive pulmonary illness and aspirin use, the researchers noted. Beta blockers also improved survival without the disease spreading to other parts of the body and survival without the c murrain recurring.