Reasons to believe
In 2011, Peter Rothwell and his team had shown that daily intake of aspirin (75 mg) reduced long-term cancer mortality. The three new studies confirmed this finding and concluded that the benefit was also felt in the shorter term.
The first study was based on work on the effect of aspirin consumption on cardiovascular events and cancer-related mortality. The researchers were able to compare the survival of aspirin users to that of controls. The analyzes showed that aspirin would decrease the risk of death from cancer by 26%. When treatment is continued for five years, that figure would even rise to 37%.
In the second study, the researchers this time focused on the spread of metastases during cancer. The results seem clear: over the six and a half years of follow-up, the risk of cancer with distant metastases would be reduced by 36% and that of adenocarcinomas by 46%. Among patients with adenocarcinomas without metastases at the time of diagnosis, taking aspirin would even reduce the risk of metastases by 70%.
Finally, the third study reveals that taking a daily low dose of aspirin would reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by almost 40%. It would also be associated with a lower long-term risk of cancers of the Å “sophagus, stomach and breast.
Spectacular results which excite the authors of the three studies: “They constitute the first proof in humans that aspirin prevents distant metastases from cancer”.
Recommend aspirin is premature
It nevertheless seems premature to recommend the daily intake of aspirin for cancer prevention on the sole basis of these studies, carried out from cardiovascular prevention studies. They were therefore not designed by oncologists with all the relevant criteria to provide results in oncology.
Additionally, aspirin causes side effects such as major bleeding which can impact quality of life. We will have to wait for the results of many other studies to adopt such a preventive treatment. Despite everything, it seems that we are heading towards the recognition of the interest of aspirin in the prevention of cancer.
Martin Lacroix – HealthPassport.net
Source: Medscape Medical News
