How NSAIDs may prevent colon cancer

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may prevent colon cancer by setting off a process where mutated cells self-destruct, U.S. researchers say.

Senior investigator Lin Zhange at Pennsylvania's University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine says NSAIDs target stem cells that have accumulated mutations that could lead to cancer and initiate a biochemical pathway that makes them undergo programmed cell death -- a process called apoptosis.

The study, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds mice with a genetic defect similar to one that is present in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis -- a condition accounting for 1 percent of colorectal cancer as well as typically present in non-hereditary colon cancer -- fed the NSAID sulindac in their feed had elevated rates of apoptosis of pre-cancerous cells within a week.

However, the NSAID was less effective at killing diseased cells when missing a gene called SMAC -- which makes a protein released during apoptosis.

"That leads us to think that SMAC is an important regulator of this process," Zhang says in a statement.

Zhang's research team also looked at polyps removed from patients and found those taking NSAIDs had higher levels of apoptosis in mutated cells.