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One study suggests that regular use of aspirin or ibuprofen could dramatically improve survival after head and neck cancer.
Common pain relievers have been found to increase the chances of survival from 25 to 78% in patients with modified cancer called PIK3CA.
About a third of head and neck cancers carry this mutation, which is also found in other types of cancer.
Each year, head and neck cancer is diagnosed in more than 12,000 people in the United Kingdom and 65,000 in the United States. It kills just over 4,000 Britons a year and 14,000 Americans.
Cancer can develop in more than 30 areas of the head and neck, including the mouth and throat.
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have examined the five-year survival rates of people with the disease.
They found that regular use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin and ibuprofen, significantly improved the survival of one-third of patients with head or neck cancer or more.
They all had the gene mutated. There has been no increase in survival in patients whose gene has not been altered in their tumor. In their article in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the authors stated that this was the first study to show a "significant clinical benefit" from regular use of NSAIDs for patients with head cancer and neck and with mutations of the PIK3CA gene.
Posted in Daily Times, January 27th 2019.
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