Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in the Chemoprevention of Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

Abstract

Skin cancer, which includes melanoma and non-melanoma cancer types (basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas), is the most common type of neoplasia worldwide with massive calls for exploring chemoprevention strategies. Research suggests that chronic inflammation is a critical component of cancer progression in which over expression of COX-2 has been reported in many cancer studies. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) which inhibit COX enzymes have been investigated for skin cancer chemoprevention both in vitro and in vivo. We have searched the association between NSAIDs and non-melanoma skin cancer in Pub-Med and Embase database in particular for animal, cell lines, and human studies. In animal and skin cancer cell line research studies, NSAIDs have been shown to have a chemoprotective role in non-melanoma skin cancer through various reported mechanisms. However, clinical data results with regards to non-melanoma cancer has been controversial due to the absence of large scale randomised clinical trials. To sustain the idea for NSAIDs role as chemo-preventative agents, further robust investigations with large trial number are required in order to consolidate epidemiological findings with the in vitro data results.