Pain-killer cancer prevention clues
Thursday May 26th, 2011
British researchers today report a crucial discovery in the search to find out how common pain-killers prevent cancer.
Common
drugs such as ibuprofen are thought to reduce cancer risk when taken regularly
- but they also have serious side-effects if taken routinely.
Now researchers have linked the pain-killers to a chemical that is over-active in prostate cancer and in some cases of other cancer, such as bowel cancer.
The chemical AMACR also plays a key role in processing ibuprofen and similar drugs in the body, according to scientists at Bath University, UK.
The findings suggest that taking pain-killers may divert the chemical from its work in fuelling the growth of cancer. They are reported in the journal Chemical Communications.
Researcher Dr Matthew Lloyd, said: "Our study is the first to test other drugs in the same family as ibuprofen systematically and show that they‘re all processed by the same protein in the body.
"Some early laboratory studies have suggested that high doses of ibuprofen can halt the growth of prostate cancer cells, but the reasons for this aren’t well understood.
“Understanding more about how this protein is acting in cells and what molecules it interacts with could provide important clues to how this process works, hopefully opening up new avenues of research for treating prostate cancer in the future.”
Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This research is part of an international effort to understand how drugs like ibuprofen could prevent, or slow down, the development of cancer.
"But there are risks as well as benefits and long term use of these drugs can have side effects, such as bleeding and stomach ulcers."
* Meanwhile experts have highlighted aspirin as the best drug to prevent bowel cancer.
Its benefits were highlighted at a conference in November at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, and reported in the journal eCancer.
Dion Morton, of Birmingham University, called for a trial of the drug for high-risk patients.
He said: "The fact that aspirin reduces the risk of colorectal cancer with a latency of 10 years indicates that adenoma prevention, rather than down-staging cancer or preventing progression is probably the mechanism involved."
Chiral inversion of 2-arylpropional-CoA esters by human alpha-methyylacyl-CoA racemase 1A (P504S) – a potential mechanism for the anti-cancer effects of ibuprofen. Woodman et al., Chemical Communications May 26 2011, DOI:10.1039/b000000x.
* Aspirin remains the best drug to help stroke patients avoid new illness -despite the emergence of a specially engineered drug, researchers reported yesterday.
The
new drug terutroban failed to out-perform aspirin in a study involving
some 20,000 patients, according to the report in The Lancet.
The French-led trial was stopped early after it became clear the new drug failed to improve on aspirin as a treatment for patients who have suffered ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack.
Terutroban was thought to be as effective as aspirin in preventing blood clotting.
The researchers led by Professor Marie-Germaine Bousser, of the Hopital Lariboisiere, Paris, said: "In a worldwide perspective, aspirin remains the gold standard antiplatelet drug for secondary stroke prevention in view of its efficacy, tolerance, and cost."
However experts said there remained a problem of providing better treatment for patients for whom aspirin did not seem to work.
A commentary in the journal says: "Trials that randomly assign patients with a breakthrough event while on aspirin to a newer antiplatelet drug or higher aspirin dose, rather than reinitiation of the original aspirin dose, could provide insights into this issue. Perhaps terutroban could be called on to perform again."
Tags: Cancer | Europe | Heart Health | Pain Relief | Pharmaceuticals | UK News
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