Patients with a wide range of cancers who take aspirin as part of their treatment could have a 20% reduced risk of death.
- The side effects of taking aspirin in people with cancer are very low.
- Aspirin is said to reduce the spread of cancer in the body, which is called metastatic spread.
This is a large meta-analysis for which researchers at Cardiff University examined 118 published observational studies involving a total of 250,000 patients with 18 different cancers. The results, published on July 2 in the journal ecancermedicalsciencesuggest that taking aspirin, as part of therapy, could help reduce the risk of death by 20% in patients with a wide range of cancers.
Very few side effects
The review of the different studies and the large cohort of participants has allowed the authors to affirm that there is a body of evidence available that substantiates the efficacy and safety of aspirin as an adjunctive treatment in many cancers. “In recent years, my research team and I have been struck by the actions of aspirin on biological mechanisms relevant to cancer – and these appear to be the same in many different cancers.said Professor Peter Elwood, lead author of the meta-analysis. We therefore wished to review the available scientific evidence on the use of aspirin as a complementary treatment for a wide range of cancers.s.”
After dissecting the various studies, the researchers found “that at any time after a cancer diagnosis, approximately 20% more patients who took aspirin were alive, compared to patients not taking aspirin”, assures Peter Elwood. The team of scientists did not stop at this observation and also examined the risks of taking aspirin. They wrote to all the authors of the articles they studied to ask them what side effects they observed in patients taking aspirin. As a result, only a small number of patients experienced bleeding but there was no evidence of excess death attributable to bleeding in patients on aspirin
Aspirin reduces metastatic spread
The virtues of aspirin would go even further. “Our research suggests that not only does aspirin help reduce the risk of death, it has also been shown to reduce the spread of cancer in the body, known as metastatic spread.says Peter Elwood. Aspirin therefore appears to merit serious consideration as an adjuvant therapy for cancer and cancer patients and their carers should be made aware of the available evidence. However, we must also point out that aspirin is not a possible alternative to any other treatment..”
This research work on aspirin is not the first for Professor Elwood. In 1974, he contributed to the first research showing that taking one tablet of aspirin a day reduced deaths from heart disease and stroke by about 24%. In 1990, this study was classified by the scientific journal BMJ as one of the 50 most important research studies published since 1945.
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