Study: Aspirin helps in cancer prevention
For the second time in less than a month, a team of medical scientists has cited a potential role for aspirin as a cancer preventive.
A single daily low-dose tablet shows promising results against colorectal, breast, prostate and lung cancers, according to researchers from the American Cancer Society.
"The accumulating data from randomized clinical trials provide an exciting opportunity to reconsider the potential role of aspirin in cancer prevention," Dr. Michael Thun, vice president emeritus for the cancer society and lead author of the new research, said in a statement Tuesday.
Thun hinted the day is drawing tantalizingly close when the cheap, widely available medication is officially listed as a cancer preventive.
Despite the news, doctors still voice concern about recommending daily low-dose aspirin therapy to people at average cancer risk.
Yet, in his re-analysis of 40 studies aimed at reducing cardiovascular disease, Thun and his team found a 20 percent reduction in overall cancer incidence three to five years after study participants began taking daily aspirin. They found a 30 percent reduction in incidence more than five years after participants started the regimen.
The scientists said that cancer prevention requires only a low-dose tablet. Low-dose therapy recommended for heart-attack prevention is a daily 81-milligram tablet.
Scientists have long theorized aspirin and similar nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents prevent cancer by inhibiting both the process of inflammation and hormonelike compounds known as prostaglandins, which have been implicated in certain colorectal cancers.
"Aspirin reduces the risk of colorectal cancer and many other types of cancer," said Dr. Vincent Yang, chairman of medicine at Stony Brook University Medical Center.
He noted aspirin is associated with gastrointestinal bleeding, kidney failure and some strokes.
"Aspirin is a wonderful drug, but I am not certain we're ready to recommend it to everybody," Yang said.
Thun's research, posted in the online edition of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, follows three similar aspirin studies last month.
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