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Aspirin

A drug that reduces pain, fever, inflammation, and blood clotting. Aspirin belongs to the family of drugs called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents. It is also being studied in cancer prevention and treatment.

A diagnosis of cancer can come with an increased risk of a heart attack or stroke in the months following the diagnosis, findings from a new study suggest. Within 6 months of a cancer diagnosis, in fact, the risk of having either event was more than twice that seen in people without cancer – National Cancer Institute.

Studies

This 2023 Meta Analysis says:
Meta-analyses of 118 observational studies of mortality in cancer patients give evidence consistent with reductions of about 20% in mortality associated with aspirin use. Reasons against aspirin use include increased risk of a gastrointestinal bleed though there appears to be no valid evidence that aspirin is responsible for fatal gastrointestinal bleeding. 

The study concluded: A major strength of the case for the promotion of aspirin as a treatment of cancer lies in the consistent evidence of a reduction in the thromboembolic complications of cancer and in the consistent evidence of a reduction in metastatic cancer spread.

A 2013 study published in PubMed concludes “data from randomised clinical studies have shown that aspirin prevents the development of malignancy, and it also appears to decrease the development and spread of metastases.

This study found:
The evidence we present from a systematic overview of the literature gives support to the use of aspirin as an additional treatment of cancer. The evidence is limited, and while it is encouraging in the case of bowel cancer, there is insufficient evidence to dismiss a role for aspirin as an adjunct treatment of cancers other than colorectal. In fact, its use can be justified on the basis of its likely benefit on outcomes other than death, including its probable reduction in metastatic spread and its reduction in vascular disease events, including venous thromboembolism.

Another study found:
…aspirin use after a cancer diagnosis improves both cancer mortality and overall survival.

Study: Therefore, cotreatment of aspirin and chemotherapeutic regimen can be a potentially safe and attractive treatment strategy to tackle cancer in a multipronged approach, targeting both CSC [cancer stem cells] and NSCC [non-stem cancer cell] populations.

Study: In summary, this study showed the potential of aspirin to sensitize stemness of H460R cells and overcome cisplatin resistance in lung cancer. This combinatorial strategy could be effective for treatment‐resistant lung carcinomas.

Study: We have provided new evidence that aspirin attenuates CSC [cancer stem cell] properties through down-regulation of NANOG, suggesting aspirin as a promising therapeutic agent for colorectal cancer treatment.

Study: Here we report, for the first time, that aspirin treatment of human glioblastoma cancer (GBM) stem cells, a small population responsible for tumor progression and recurrence, is associated with reduced cell proliferation and motility.

Study: The present study highlights the suggested preventive and therapeutic effects of aspirin in PDA [Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma] by demonstrating the elimination of CSC [cancer stem cell] features, inflammatory factors and desmoplasia.

Study finds no benefit for lung cancer patients

In this study a total of 14,735 lung cancer patients were identified during the study period. In analysis of 3,635 lung cancer patients, there was no suggestion of an association between low-dose aspirin use after diagnosis and cancer-specific mortality… Similarly, no association was evident for low-dose aspirin use before diagnosis and cancer-specific mortality… Associations were comparable by duration of use and for all-cause mortality.
Conclusion
In this population-based study, low-dose aspirin use was not associated with an improvement in cancer survival in a large cohort of cancer-registry confirmed lung cancer patients.

Can a daily aspirin lower your cancer risk?

Source: MD Anderson Cancer Center
study of recovering breast cancer patients found those who took a daily aspirin for three to five years were 60% less likely to suffer from a recurrence of the disease. The aspirin swallowers also were 71% less likely to die as a result of breast cancer.

In addition, aspirin may slow the spread of lung cancer by 20% to 30%. And, taking low-dose aspirin each day for more than 10 years could drop stomach cancer deaths by 31%.  

That’s not to say everyone should start swallowing a daily aspirin. The drug comes with some very real drawbacks — most notably an increased risk for internal bleeding.

Aspirin Found to Prevent Death from Prostate Cancer, but Not to Protect from Prostate Cancer

Source: Oncology Times
Regular aspirin use after diagnosis of prostate cancer is associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer mortality and metastases, according to new data from the large observational Physicians’ Health Study (1982-2009) reported at the 2016 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (Abstract 306).

With 27 years of follow-up on 22,071 male physicians enrolled in the study, 3,193 had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Of those, 403 developed metastatic disease or died from prostate cancer, said Christopher Brian Allard, MD, Urologic Oncology Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, the study’s first author.

Among men with prostate cancer, regular aspirin use after diagnosis was associated with a 39 percent decreased risk of dying from prostate cancer,

Warning
1. Some cancer therapies can conflict with others. Do not start ANY therapy without consulting your doctor to ensure it’s safe and beneficial to do so.
2. Just because any given therapy worked for someone else does not necessarily mean it will work for you.
3. Although there are many viable alternative cancer treatments, there isn’t a “best” treatment for a certain type or stage of cancer.

Cancer Survival Tips

Page updated 2023

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