Researchers in Netherlands analyzed data from nearly 14,000 patients suffering from a range of cancers, around half of whom were regular aspirin takers.
After a 4-year follow-up period, those who took the anti-inflammatory painkiller were twice as likely to still be alive compared to those who didn’t take aspirin daily.
Factors that influence the survival rate such as, age, gender, stage of cancer, other medical conditions, and treatments were taken into account before the impact of aspirin on survival was identified.
The coordinator of the trial Dr. Martine Frouws believes that the findings could have a great impact on patients and national healthcare system.
“Now we would like to analyze tumor material from these patients to try and discover which ones would benefit from aspirin treatment,” said Frouws from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
“Through studying the characteristics of tumors in patients where aspirin was beneficial, we should be able to identify patients who could profit from such treatment in the future.
Given that aspirin is a cheap, off-patent drug with relatively few side-effects, this will have a great impact on healthcare systems as well as patients,” she said.
Most common types of cancer in these patients were colon, rectum and esophagus.
The researchers are going ahead with a randomized control trial to investigate the survival of elderly bowel cancer patients in the Netherlands by giving them a daily dose of 80mg of aspirin. The effects of aspirin and placebo will be compared in this trial.
Researchers plan to expand the study at a later date that will include gastrointestinal cancer patients, which they hope will provide convincing proof that the aspirin treatment will benefit more patients.
“We have good evidence that the frequent use of aspirin in the population can prevent some cases of colorectal (bowel) cancer, said Prof Peter Naredi, scientific co-chair of the congress.
“Now, Frouws and colleagues show that in over 13,000 patients who were diagnosed with a gastrointestinal cancer, aspirin also improved survival compared with those who did not use it.
“With more and more data to support the beneficial role of aspirin, we must consider whether we should recommend it to a wider public,”
Dr. Martine Frouws presented the findings at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna.
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