Researchers from Norwegian Radium Hospital and National Hospital, Oslo and other collaborating Universities from many cancer Institutes has presented their study data conducted over 20 years in 900 adults has found that long use of Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), reduces the risk of oral cancer in smoking individuals by at least 50%. But the drug also has the risk of developing cardiovascular deaths, the study has found that use of NSAIDs for more than 6 months increased the risk of developing cardiovascular deaths. The study was funded by U.S. National Cancer Institute and other councils. The data was analyzed from 1975 to 1995 in more than 123,000 adults by surveying the lifestyles, habits, and long term health of the study participants.
"Our findings highlight how a commonly used drug can have a benefit from the standpoint of cancer prevention but can also have side effects - in this case, an increased risk for cardiovascular death," said co-researcher Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, the Henry R. Erle, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Director of Cancer Prevention at New York-Presbyterian /Weill Cornell."Specifically, we were looking for associations between the long-term use of traditional, non-COX-2-specific NSAIDs and the risk of oral cancer, since previous work has suggested that these drugs can lower risks for other malignancies, such as colon cancer," explained co-researcher Dr. Scott M. Lippman, Ellen F. Knisely Distinguished Chair and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Adults who were prescribed NSAIDs such as aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, indomethacin, piroxicam, and ketoprofen for 6 months or more (most of them for much longer periods, with 88 percent taking NSAIDs for 5 years or more) were at a 53 percent lowered risk for oral malignancies compared with those who did not take the drugs over the long-term, though the results show that the drugs reduced the risk of oral cancer, the drug did not give any benefit in reduction of the disease.
Dr. Dannenberg and co-author Dr. J. Jack Lee, Professor of Biostatistics at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, stressed that although the data themselves were collected prospectively, the study remains a relatively small, retrospective effort. "It's tough to make sweeping generalizations until the results are confirmed by much larger, prospective trials," they said.
Source: News wise.
