Common pain reliever can improve survival in head and neck cancer

Researchers find some cancer cell lines are more sensitive to NSAID treatment
Date:
January 25, 2019
Source:
University of California - San Francisco
Summary:
Regular use of a common type of medication, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, significantly improves survival for a third or more patients with head and neck cancer, a new study has found.

Regular use of a common type of medication, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, significantly improves survival for a third or more patients with head and neck cancer, a new study led by UC San Francisco has found.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, improved the overall five-year survival rate from 25 percent to 78 percent for patients whose cancer contained a specific altered gene, known as PIK3CA, the researchers reported. The survival for patients whose gene was not altered in their tumor, was unaffected by NSAID use.

This is the first study to show a strong clinical advantage of regular NSAID use for head and neck cancer patients with mutations in the PIK3CA gene and may indicate a clear, biological reason to implement NSAID therapy in certain cases of the disease, said the authors.

The paper is published January 25, 2019 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190125094224.htm