Pellau Magazine: Daily dose of Aspirin ‘cuts bowel cancer death risk’

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A wealth of evidence already suggests aspirin
might prevent certain cancers from developing in
the first place.
Bowel cancer patients who take daily aspirin could
cut their chance of dying from the disease by
about a third, experts believe. A study in the
British Journal of Cancer looked at 4,500 bowel
cancer patients living in The Netherlands. All of
the patients on aspirin were taking a low dose—
80mg or less a day—something already
recommended for people with heart disease. But
experts say it is too soon to start routinely offering
it for bowel cancer. A wealth of evidence already
suggests aspirin might prevent certain cancers
from developing in the first place. And more
recent work suggests it might also work as a
cancer therapy—slowing down or preventing a
cancer;s spread. But the drug can also have
unpleasant and dangerous side effects, causing
irritation of the stomach lining and internal bleeds
in a very small minority of patients.
The findings
In the study, which spanned nearly a decade, a
quarter of the patients did not use aspirin, a
quarter only took aspirin after being diagnosed
with bowel cancer, and the remaining half took
aspirin both before and after their diagnosis. Most
of the patients on aspirin had been taking it to
prevent cardiovascular disease-related problems
like stroke or heart attack. Taking aspirin for any
length of time after diagnosis cut the chance of
dying from bowel cancer by 23 per cent. The
patients who took a daily dose of aspirin for at
least nine months after their diagnosis cut their
chance of dying from the disease by 30 per cent.
Taking aspirin only after bowel cancer had been
detected had a bigger impact on reducing
mortality compared with when aspirin was taken
before and after diagnosis—reducing death risk by
12 per cent. This may be because those who took
aspirin and still got bowel cancer had a
particularly aggressive form of tumour that did
not respond as well to aspirin, say the
researchers.
Lead researcher Dr Gerrit-Jan Liefers, of the
Leiden University Medical Centre, said: "Our work
adds to growing evidence that aspirin not only
can prevent cancer from occurring but if it is
there it can help prevent it spreading." He said
aspirin should not be seen as an alternative to
other treatments, such as chemotherapy, but
could be a useful additional treatment. "It's
possible that some older people may have other
health problems which mean that they are not
well enough to have chemotherapy. Bowel cancer
is more common in older people so these results
could be a big advance in treatment of the
disease, particularly in this group. But we need
further research to confirm this." He said they
now planned to hold a randomised controlled trial
—the "gold standard" in medical research—to look
at how well aspirin fared against a dummy drug in
people aged more than 70 with bowel cancer.
Sarah Lyness of Cancer Research UK said: "This
latest study adds to the growing evidence about
the benefits of aspirin. "But we are not yet at the
point where we would recommend people start
taking aspirin to reduce their chances of
developing cancer. "There are still questions we
need to answer about the side effects, such as
internal bleeding, who might benefit most from
taking aspirin, who might be harmed, what dose
and how long people some people might want to
take it for. "Anyone thinking of taking aspirin to
cut their risk of cancer should talk to their GP first.
People with cancer should be aware that aspirin
can increase the chances of complications before
surgery or other cancer treatments such as
chemotherapy, and should discuss this with their
specialist. "In the meantime, there are many ways
we can take to lower our risk of developing cancer
—not smoking, cutting back on alcohol and
keeping a healthy weight can help stack the odds
in our favour." (BBC)