Taking aspirin regularly reduces long-term risk of cancer
Last updated 10/31/2011 1:48:25 PM
Taking aspirin regularly reduces long-term risk of cancer
Research has finally provided proof that taking a regular dose of aspirin reduces the long-term risk of cancer in people with a family history of the disease by around 60 per cent.
Evidence of the benefits of aspirin has been accumulating for over 20 years but these are the first results from a randomised controlled trial assessing the effect of aspirin on cancer.
Late last year an analysis of people who had taken part in the early aspirin trials to prevent heart attacks and strokes showed that in subsequent years they developed fewer cancers. The missing piece of the jigsaw was a randomised trial specifically looking at its effect on cancer.
Researchers at the Universities of Newcastle and Leeds found that the benefits become obvious several years after taking the aspirin.
Professor Sir John Burn, from Newcastle University, said: "What we have finally shown is that aspirin has a major preventative effect on cancer but this doesn't become apparent until years later."
The study involving scientists and clinicians from 43 centres in 16 countries followed nearly 1,000 patients, in some cases for over 10 years. The study focused on people with Lynch syndrome, an inherited genetic disorder which affects genes responsible for detecting and repairing damage in the DNA. Around half of these people develop cancer, mainly in the bowel and womb.
Between 1999 and 2005 a total 861 people began either taking two aspirins (600 mg) every day for two years or a placebo. At the end of the treatment stage in 2007 there was no difference between those who had taken aspirin and those who had not. However, the study team anticipated a longer term effect and designed the study for continued follow-up. By 2010 there had been 19 new colorectal cancers among those who had received aspirin and 34 among those on placebo.
The incidence of cancer among the group who had taken aspirin had halved – and the effect began to be seen five years after patients starting taking the aspirin. A further analysis focused on the patients who took aspirin for at least two years according to the original design - some 60% of the total - and here the effects of aspirin were even more pronounced: a 63% reduced incidence of colorectal cancer was observed with 23 bowel cancers in the placebo group but only 10 in the aspirin group.Looking at all cancers related to Lynch syndrome, including cancer of the endometrium or womb, almost 30% of the patients taking the placebo had developed a cancer compared to around 15% of those taking the aspirin.