Regular aspirin use linked to lower risk of dying from cancer, especially colorectal, breast, prostate cancer
MONDAY, April 3, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Regular aspirin use is associated with reduced mortality, mainly due to a lower risk of dying from any cancer, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 1 to 5 in Washington, D.C.
Yin Cao, M.P.H., Sc.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues examined the correlation between aspirin use and subsequent total and cancer-specific mortality among 86,206 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 43,977 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
The researchers found that regular aspirin use correlated with reduced risk of total mortality compared with nonregular use (multivariable-adjusted relative risks [RRs], 0.93 and 0.89 for women and men, respectively), which was mainly due to a lower risk of dying from any cancer (RRs, 0.93 and 0.85 for women and men, respectively), especially colorectal cancers (RRs, 0.69 and 0.70, respectively), breast cancers (RR, 0.89), prostate cancers (RR, 0.77), and lung cancers in men (RR, 0.86). For both men and women, the benefit of aspirin on cancer mortality was seen with use of 0.5 to 1.5 standard aspirin tablets per week; lower cancer mortality was seen for a minimum duration of regular use of six years.
“Accumulating evidence suggests that aspirin not only reduces the risk of developing cancer, but may also play a strong role in reducing death from cancer,” Cao said in a statement.
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