The University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) has received a $144,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to study oral cancer pain.
Pain is the first and top symptom among the majority of oral cancer patients, according to Shivani Ruparel, PhD, an assistant professor in the university's School of Dentistry. Her research focuses on studying cancer pain mechanisms to develop treatment options.
"Current treatments for oral cancer pain are not very effective and there are problems with side effects," Ruparel stated in a press release. "What is worse is that oral cancer patients become tolerant to the dosage of the current pain medications very quickly, and, therefore, require a lot more of it to achieve relief," she said.
Oral cancer tumors release certain fat molecules that act as pain messengers, Ruparel reported in previous research. These molecules, after being released, enter a pain-sensing channel in the surrounding nerves, which leads to the pain message being transmitted to the patient's brain.
Ruparel plans to study the mechanism by which these fat molecules are produced and to test both novel and already available drugs that may act to inhibit the production of these molecules.
