Further research suggests aspirin may reduce risk of dying from cancer

Further research has provided more evidence to suggest that individuals who take aspirin have a lower risk of dying from cancer. Researchers looked at data from two very large studies that followed groups of nurses and other healthcare professionals (more than 130,000 people in total) over a period of up to 32 years. These studies were not clinical trials – a trial is the only way to demonstrate a definite link between aspirin and cancer deaths, and so these findings need to be confirmed.

Researchers found that individuals who took aspirin regularly were less likely to die from cancer. In particular, there were fewer deaths from bowel cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer.  The benefits of aspirin were seen in individuals taking low doses of aspirin, such as those used in the Add-Aspirin trial, over a period of several years. These findings were reported at the annual conference of the American Association for Cancer Research.

There are some important limitations to this type of study – in particular, there are many other factors that will affect an individual’s risk of dying from cancer, and these may differ for those people who did take aspirin and those who did not. The study also doesn’t tell us which individuals might benefit the most from taking aspirin – we expect that individuals who have had treatment for a previous cancer may derive the most benefit, but this has not yet been confirmed. The Add-Aspirin trial is designed for this purpose - some participants will take aspirin and others will take a placebo (dummy) tablet  – this is decided at random to ensure a fair comparison. This new research further highlights the need for a trial to answer this question once and for all.