The nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs that inhibit cyclooxygenase block the formation of prostanoids in vivo. These agents may be useful as modulators of cytotoxic anticancer therapies. EMT-6 mouse mammary carcinoma cells growing in culture were exposed for 1 h or 24 h to eleven different nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents or acetaminophen. None of these drugs was very cytotoxic. A concentration of 50muM of the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs or acetaminophen was chosen for modulator combination studies with the antitumor alkylating agents CDDP, L-PAM, BCNU and 4-HC in cell culture. Several of the modulators protected the EMT-6 cells from the cytotoxicity of the antitumor alkylating agents; however, diflunisal, sulindac, indomethacin, acetaminophen and in some cases ibuprofen and tolmetin were positive modulators of the antitumor alkylating agents under the cell culture conditions tested. EMT-6 tumor cell survival studies and bone marrow CFU-GM survival studies were carried out with seven of the modulators and various doses of cyclophosphamide. Tolmetin, ibuprofen, sulindac, piroxicam and diflunisal in combination with cyclophosphamide produced increased tumor cell killing compared with cyclophosphamide alone without marked changes in toxicity to the bone marrow derived CFU-GM. In EMT-6 tumor growth delay experiments, none of the six modulators tested affected the growth of the tumors; however, tolmetin, ibuprofen, diflunisal and sulindac increased the tumor growth delay obtained with standard dose-schedules of cyclophosphamide or CDDP. When minocycline, a collagenase inhibitor, was added to treatment regimens including diflunisal or sulindac and either cyclophosphamide, CDDP or L-PAM further increases in tumor growth delay were obtained especially when L-PAM was the cytotoxic therapeutic agent. The number of lung metastases and the percentage lung metastases with diameters >3 mm were reduced by treatment with the modulator combinations alone and further reduced with the addition of the antitumor alkylating agents. These results indicate that agents which inhibit signaling pathways among tumor cells and between tumor cells and normal cells can be useful additions to cytotoxic therapies.