New research found that combining a low dose of a targeted cancer-fighter (diflouromethylornithine or DFMO) with an anti-inflammatory drug (Sulindac) reduces the risk of reoccurring colorectal polyps, which are believed to be an early sign of colon cancer.

For the study, Dr. Frank L. Meyskens director of the Cancer Center at the University of California, Irvine and Dr. Daniel G. Aldrich, chairman and director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Institute, leaders of the study, enrolled 375 patients who had a history of at least one colorectal polyp within the previous five years. Patients were randomly assigned to either a combination of 500 mg of daily DFMO and 150 mg sulindac, or placebo. Patients were followed for three years to measure polyp recurrence.

At the end of the study, the researchers found that the combination treatment reduced the risk of recurrent adenoma from 41.1 percent in the placebo group to 12.3 percent with treatment, a 70 percent reduction.

For patients with more than one previous polyp, 0.7 percent of them had a recurrence, compared with 13.2 percent of placebo patients -- a 95 percent reduction.

The researchers also found no difference in toxicity between the treatment and placebo groups. Moreover, there was no difference in side effects requiring overnight hospitalization, gastrointestinal side effects or cardiovascular side effects between the two groups.

“There is a great hope that we will be able to prevent colon cancer effectively using this method. We had not been able to do this before due to the high toxicity of available therapies. Difluoromethylornithine is a targeted agent that represents a new treatment paradigm,” said Dr. Meyskens, according to Medical News Today.

“That’s the real breakthrough. We have shown for the first time that a combination strategy can dramatically reduce this threat for the patients at higher risk. Further testing will tell us if this therapy might be useful for others at risk — those who have a family history of colon cancer, but have not yet developed polyps,” said Eugene Gerner, director of the University of Arizona Cancer Center’s gastrointestinal cancer program.

According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer will kill 52,000 people this year in the United States alone.

The results of the study were presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego.