Daily Times

Regular use of aspirin or ibuprofen could dramatically boost survival from head and neck cancer, research suggests.

The common painkillers were found to increase the chance of survival from 25 percent to 78 percent for patients whose cancer contained a specific altered gene, known as PIK3CA.

Around a third of head and neck cancers carry this mutation, and it is also found in other types of cancer.

Head and neck cancer is newly diagnosed in more than 12,000 people in the UK each year, and 65,000 in the US. It kills just over 4,000 Brits a year and 14,000 American.

There are more than 30 areas within the head and neck where cancer can develop, including the mouth and throat.

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco looked at five-year survival rates for people diagnosed with the disease.

They found that regular use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin and ibuprofen, significantly improved survival for a third or more of patients with head and neck cancer.

They all had the mutated gene. There was no increase in survival for patients whose gene was not altered in their tumor. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the authors said 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.

Published in Daily Times, January 27^th 2019.