A new study from Denmark shows that people who use painkillers regularly for a long period of time less likely develop skin cancer. Especially those who take high doses have very low risks of skin cancer as compared to those who rarely take painkiller. Although these new findings have proof to claim that non-steroidal drugs might also help to protect against skin cancer but still there are few weaknesses in the study. One of them is that it does not tell the effects of sun exposure to skin.
The study was published online in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society. 18000 people from Denmark have been looked between 1991 and 2009. Among them, 13000 were diagnosed with the most common form, basal cell carcinoma; 3,000 with the most dangerous form, malignant melanoma; and 2,000 or so with another form, called squamous cell carcinoma.
The researchers, from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, looked at the prescription records of those patients and compared it with information from 178,000 Danes without skin cancer. They have found 15 percent decrease in the cancer risks of developing squamous cell carcinoma in those people who have filled more two prescriptions for NSAIDs.
