Head and neck cancers are painful in a way many other cancers aren’t because they hurt almost immediately. Oral cancers, in particular, can cause excruciating pain created by the cancer and by the treatment, according to Shivani Ruparel, PhD. She is an associate professor and director of research in the Department of Endodontics at UT Health San Antonio.
“So you can only imagine how much pain every single day of their lives these patients are going through. It's absolutely horrific, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to even just think about it,” Ruparel said.
Right now, the only option to ease their pain is opioids, which are dangerous and addictive.
“That's why my goal is to really understand how pain is produced in these cancer patients and how we can identify novel molecules that can then eventually be developed into novel analgesics,” she said.
They know that pain in these cancers can actually fuel growth, just as cancer growth causes pain. It’s bidirectional.
“What we've identified now is that this process actually is releasing or producing some compounds and some molecules that can be potentially targeted with a class of drugs that can mitigate pain, but we also hope that it can mitigate cancer,” Ruparel said.
So, if they could reduce the pain they might also reduce the cancer’s growth.
“If we can do both,” she said, “that would be the ultimate outcome.”
She and her team are working on potential analgesics that might also help people with other cancers, as well as those with pain conditions unrelated to cancer who also rely on opioids for pain relief.
“Yes, my guess would be and my hope would be that it would be something that (could) transcend into other pain conditions as well,” Ruparel said.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio that explores how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
