Most people who die from cancer don’t die because of the main tumor. They die because the cancer spreads to other parts of the body. This spreading process is called metastasis.
When cancer spreads, it becomes much harder to treat. Even after doctors remove the main tumor with surgery, tiny cancer cells may still be hiding somewhere in the body.
These leftover cells are often too small to see or remove. That’s why chemotherapy is often used after surgery — to try to kill any cells that are still there.
But chemotherapy is not perfect. It can sometimes cause inflammation in the body. Inflammation is the body’s natural way of reacting to injury or infection, but in some cases, it may actually help cancer cells survive and spread.
Now, researchers from Emory University have found something interesting. They discovered that a common painkiller called ketorolac might help stop cancer from spreading — if it’s given before surgery.
Ketorolac is a type of drug called a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID. It is usually used to treat short-term pain, like after surgery or an injury. It’s already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but doctors don’t use it very often because it can have side effects if taken for too long.
In this new study, scientists gave ketorolac to mice before surgery. They found that the drug helped the immune system become stronger and better at killing cancer cells that had started to spread. In the mice that got ketorolac, there were fewer cancer cells in other parts of the body, and the mice lived longer.
The researchers also tried something else. They combined ketorolac with small amounts of aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids — the healthy fats found in fish oil. This combination worked even better.
The mice lived even longer, and fewer of them had cancer spread. This shows that using a mix of anti-inflammatory drugs might be a better way to stop cancer from spreading.
This study was led by Dr. Vikas P. Sukhatme and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The idea behind this research is to reuse old drugs in new ways. Since ketorolac is already approved and used in hospitals, it might be easier and faster to test it in cancer patients.
The scientists are now planning more research to see how ketorolac could be used together with other cancer treatments. They hope it can become part of a new plan to stop cancer from spreading and help people live longer, healthier lives after cancer surgery.
More studies are needed to confirm the results in humans, but this early research gives hope. It shows that a simple, well-known drug might play a big role in the fight against cancer.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that low-carb diet could increase overall cancer risk, and new way to increase the longevity of cancer survivors.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how to fight cancer with these anti-cancer superfoods, and results showing daily vitamin D3 supplementation may reduce cancer death risk.
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