New research that finds taking an aspirin a day can reduce the risk of dying from cancer is likely to tip the balance in favor of more widely using the standby pain killer in preventive care, according to a new American Cancer Society report.
The report, published in the journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, said even a 10 percent reduction in overall cancer risk during the first 10 years of treatment would be sufficient for doctors to start recommending aspirin to healthy patients as part of clinical practice.
"The accumulating data from randomized clinical trials provide an exciting opportunity to reconsider the potential role of aspirin in cancer prevention," according to the report’s authors. “These new data bring us considerably closer to the time when cancer prevention can be integrated into the clinical guidelines for prophylactic treatment following regulatory review by the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and the European Medicines Agency."
The report noted current federal guidelines recommend the use of aspirin every day – or every other day -- to prevent heart disease or a second heart attack. Aspirin use has also been found to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer and recurrence of adenomatous polyps, but these benefits were not believed to outweigh risks from aspirin-induced bleeding in some people.
But a new analysis of 51 studies involving more than 77,000 patients found that aspirin at low doses (75-100 mg daily) not only reduces a person's risk of developing cancer but it can also help stop tumors from spreading to other parts of the body. The analysis, published in the journal The Lancet, suggested the benefits outweigh the risks of bleeding.
In the wake of that analysis, many health experts have called for a new review of federal guidelines on aspirin.