A new University of Michigan study has found that acid-suppressing drugs that inhibit gastric acid secretion significantly prolong the survival time of patients with head and neck cancer. Researchers studied two acid-suppressing drugs, proton pump inhibitors and histamine 2 receptor blockers, in 600 head and neck cancer patients who received at least one acid-suppressing drug. Acid reflux, commonly known as heartburn, is one of the most common complications in radiotherapy. The occurrence of acid reflux often requires the use of acid-suppressing drugs, with common proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole, esomeprazole and lansoprazole, and common histamine 2 receptor blockers such as metronidazole, ranitidine, famotidine and others. The researchers found that those patients who received proton pump inhibitors had a 45% lower mortality rate and those who received histamine 2 receptor blockers had a 33% lower mortality rate compared to those who did not receive acid-suppressing drugs. The results were published in the December 2014 issue of the journal (a journal of the American Cancer Society, SCI-indexed, impact factor 4.44). It is also unclear to scientists why acid suppressants prolong survival in patients with head and neck cancer, but they have set out to investigate the mechanism. D., of the University of Michigan, author of the article, said, “We were surprised by the results that acid-suppressing drugs actually prolonged the survival of patients with head and neck cancer. We will increase the sample size further to further evaluate the effect of acid-suppressing drugs on patient survival. At present, acid-suppressing drugs are only used when patients have acid reflux, and perhaps a longer course of treatment would be more beneficial to survival.” The results of this study at least suggest that the effects of acid-suppressing drugs are not only in controlling complications, but more importantly, their contribution to patient survival. Scientists will further investigate whether patients who take acid-suppressing drugs for acid reflux for long periods of time are less likely to develop head and neck cancer than normal people.