Postoperative non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug use and oncological outcomes of rectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are known to suppress the inflammatory response after surgery and are often used for pain control. This study aimed to investigate NSAID use after radical surgical resection for rectal cancer and long-term oncological outcomes. METHODS: A cohort of patients who underwent anterior resection for rectal cancer between 2007 and 2013 in 15 hospitals in Sweden was investigated retrospectively. Data were obtained from the Swedish Colorectal Cancer Registry and medical records; follow-up was undertaken until July 2019. Patients who received NSAID treatment for at least 2 days after surgery were compared with controls who did not, and the primary outcome was recurrence-free survival. Cox regression modelling with confounder adjustment, propensity score matching, and an instrumental variables approach were used; missing data were handled by multiple imputation. RESULTS: The cohort included 1341 patients, 362 (27.0 per cent) of whom received NSAIDs after operation. In analyses using conventional regression and propensity score matching, there was no significant association between postoperative NSAID use and recurrence-free survival (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.02, 0.79 to 1.33). The instrumental variables approach, including individual hospital as the instrumental variable and clinicopathological variables as co-variables, suggested a potential improvement in the NSAID group (HR 0.61, 0.38 to 0.99). CONCLUSION: Conventional modelling did not demonstrate an association between postoperative NSAID use and recurrence-free survival in patients with rectal cancer, although an instrumental variables approach suggested a potential benefit.