Flufenamic acid, a cheap drug used with colds, has been ‘unexpectedly proven to fight cancers’ according to Dr. Shinya Tanaka of Hokkaido University in Japan. Recently there has been great interest in common drugs like this that have side-effects against cancer!
After giving mice primary bladder tumours with metastatic activity in the lung, liver and bones, the team identified AKR1C1 expression identical to that in human bladder cancer. Two types of bladder cancer can be found normally – non-muscle invasive (which has a 5-year survival of 90%) and muscle invasive which is far harder to treat because the drugs used, like cisplatin, lose effect, as the tumours develop chemo-resistance and spread to other organs.
The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory cold remedy was shown to inhibit AKR1C! which causes the chemo-resistance, and it suppressed the metastatic and invasive activity.
Chris Woollams, founder of CANCERactive and former Oxford University biochemist said, “Yet again, an old drug designed for another purpose is being shown to exert a strong anti-cancer activity. And it is another anti-inflammatory drug. Chronic inflammation leads to cancer and drives cancer spread. Using anti-inflammatory compounds makes simple sense in a Complementary and Integrative cancer treatment programme, whether they be curcumin, aspirin or Flufenamic acid.
There are a number of drugs that are getting a new lease of life because they can be of significant help in the cancer fight - like metformin, doxycycline, mebendazole, melatonin, LDN - and readers should follow the link below".
Go to: Repurposing old drugs for use with cancer