Posted on 11/28/2023 9:14:24 PM PST by ConservativeMind
Lidocaine—often used as a numbing agent for outpatient medical procedures—activates certain bitter taste receptors through two unique mechanisms that result in cancer cell death, according to researchers.
Their findings pave the way for a clinical trial to test the addition of lidocaine to the standard of care therapy for patients with head and neck cancers. The local anesthetic drug has long been suggested to have beneficial effects in cancer patients, but it wasn't known how or why.
The team found that lidocaine activates the bitter taste receptor T2R14, which is elevated in various cancer cells.
When this receptor is activated, it starts a process called apoptosis, causing the cancer cells to die.
Previous work by the team showed that bitter taste receptors are found in many oral and throat cancer cells, where they trigger apoptosis.
"We've been following this line of research for years but were surprised to find that lidocaine targets the one receptor that happened to be most highly expressed across cancers," Lee said.
While T2R14 helps the body perceive bitter taste in the mouth, the function of the receptor in other cells throughout the body is unclear. Lidocaine is typically injected into the skin or other tissues to prevent pain by blocking nerve signals and could easily be directly injected near or around accessible oral tumors.
"Speaking as a head and neck surgeon, we use lidocaine all the time," Carey said. "We know lidocaine is safe, we're comfortable using it, and it's readily available, which means it could be incorporated into other aspects of head and neck cancer care fairly seamlessly."
The study, which was done primarily in cell lines of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs), also found that T2R14 is particularly elevated in HNSCCs associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV).
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Look for the FDA to now ban lidocaine.
Maybe I should thank my dentist for killing the cancers I never knew I had. :)
He has certainly administered enough of it to me over the last 10+ years.
I hope this is true for dibucaine also — I’ve been using it with a chronic skin condition for 20 years.
That’s usually procaine but like dibucaine I mentioned, might be the same diff.
Too bad it’s the only local anaesthetic that works for me burns its way through my skin in slow mothion. The two dozen shots they gave me before a 45-minute skin cancer surgery felt like a daylong soujourn through Hell; didn’t feel a thing through that one or the second round after 75 minutes in the waiting room with an open wound on my cheek while waiting for the results from pathology, another 20-minute minute round of surgery, another hour in the waiting room until the pathologist finally declare me cancer-free and then the skin surgeon and plastic surgeon had figure out how best to stretch the remaining skin over the wound through trial and ever before letting a surgical resident sew my face up with half a dozen plastic stitches on one layer then another dozen regular stitches to close the outside layer of my skin. The lidocaine wore off within a couple of hours, just in time for me to still feel the afer-effect of what they did to the right side of my face.
Two days later I peeled off the bandage and put back in place before getting a chance to see the full effect of what they did. let’s just say that I looked like I’d been in bar fight that involved broken glass.
Within a month the only sign that anything went amiss was that my skin was thinner and my beard was sparser on the right side of my face than it was on the left side.
interesting, thanks
I really want to know the mechanism of this.
Something that causes apoptosis (aka programmed cell death) in any cell with these receptors does not sound safe to me.
Is the apoptosis limited only to cancer cells? I hope so.
My dentist uses lidocaine and I found in a search for dental anesthetics that lidocaine is the most used followed by articaine and mepivacaine. I looked at several lists on different websites and did not find procaine.
The cancer will die painlessly......
Interesting. I sent my oncologist the link. Had squamous cell carcinoma in 2013. Still alive and kicking. I’ll bet he already knows about it.
OK. Countdown to the day it will be forbidden to be sold OTC — or anywhere else. We learned our lesson with Ivermectin when it comes to how the medical industrial complex works.
Lidocaine induces apoptosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma through activation of bitter taste receptor T2R14, Cell Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113437
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113437
T2R bitter taste receptors regulate apoptosis and may be associated with survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8978516/pdf/MOL2-16-1474.pdf
Lidocaine is used to try and terminate certain cardiac dysrhythmias. Not first line anymore. Was used a lot back in the day during emergency cardiac resusitative events (code blue). I would guess they would inject cancerous tissue with it rather than use an iv..like a dentist or skin surgeon injects only local areas.
Thanks for the ping.
But procaine is a real thing ..
Procaine is a local anesthetic drug of the amino ester group. It is most commonly used in dental procedures to numb the area around a tooth[1] and is also used to reduce the pain of intramuscular injection of penicillin. Owing to the ubiquity of the trade name Novocain or Novocaine, in some regions, procaine is referred to generically as novocaine.
I wonder how similar lidocaine is to regular ol’ cocaine.
The study, ... also found that T2R14 is particularly elevated in HNSCCs associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV).
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Wait a minute. So lidocaine infused condoms might be on the horizon?
Wouldn’t that be unusual?
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