A new study has revealed that a widely available and commonly used anti-inflammatory medicine celecoxib, or Celebrex, might just end up offering added protection against some types of skin cancer.

A recently undertaken research, which looked to study the effect on the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), called celecoxib on the progress of skin cancer, involved as many as 60 subjects, all of who had a genetic predisposition to a type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma. Nearly 50% of the subjects were put on 200 mg of celecoxib twice a day, orally, for some 2 years, and the remaining were put on a placebo.

While all the subjects did start to develop new cancers, those treated with celecoxib managed to pull back the growth of the skin tumors by about 50%, as compared to subjects on the placebo.

Also, patients on the drug reported a reduced overall burden of the tumor.

"This new study of cyclooxygenase inhibition, together with recent data on the efficacy of hedgehog pathway inhibition, offers new hope for patients at a high risk for basal cell cancer", notes Charles M. Rudin, MD, PhD.

The trial, however, had to be discontinued over concerns of cardiovascular complications which seemed to be tied with the treatment. Details have been published in the January issue of Cancer Prevention Research.