Could beta blocker use in elderly hypertensive patients reduce risk of skin cancers?

Abstract

Beta blokers are commonly used medications mainly in the treatment of cardiovascular health problems for years.Other known indications are migraine,anxiety,thyrotoxicosis and infantile hemangiomas.In addition to these,recent studies showes they have anticancer properties probably due to their adrenergic and angiogenesis blocking effects which are essential for tumor progression.Patients with prostate,breast,ovarian,non-small cell lung cancers or melanoma were demonstrated getting benefit from beta blocer treatments.Depending on these data,we searched antihypertensive drug history of patients with premalignant skin lesions and non-melanoma akin cancers at past two years.We observed that patients using beta blockers as antihypertensive agent had less solar keratosis and basal cell cancers during the our study.

Keywords

• beta blockers
• skin cancer