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Common pain relief drug may improve skin cancer tretment

Researchers from Ohio State University found that a common pain relief medication seems to increase the effectiveness of a drug used to treat skin cancer. Experiments in mice showed that the combination of celecoxib — a prescription-only non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) — and a cream commonly used to treat nonmelanoma skin cancer was up to 35 percent more effective in reducing the number of skin cancer tumors than treating such lesions with the cream alone.

Arthritis drug suppresses cancer development by stopping action of key protein

Researchers have, for the first time, identified the molecular pathway by which a commonly prescribed arthritis medication inhibits the growth of cancer. Before this study, scientists had linked use of celecoxib capsules (commonly known as Celebrex) to prevention of cancer, but the way in which the medication acted in cancer cells was unknown. Now, investigators have found that celecoxib capsules stop a key transcription factor known as Sp1 from turning on multiple genes in cancer cells known to be associated with cancer growth.