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There are many cancer breakthroughs being made on a daily basis, for example, they just found the cause of a rare and aggressive ovarian cancer, but today we are going to take a look at how an age-old and simple medicine, aspirin, is improving colon cancer survival.
Aspirin has been used for decades to treat mild to moderate pain and relieve inflammation, but a new study has shown that patients diagnosed with colon cancer have better survival if they take low doses of this drug.
The study was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal and it was conducted by researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, led by Dr. Marlies S. Reimers. Curious about what they found? Read on!
Aspirin Improves Colon Cancer Survival
The American Cancer Society says that there will be almost 999 cases of colon cancer diagnosed in 2014. Most of the colon cancer is diagnosed in the late stages, where the 5-year survival rate is low (12%); early diagnosed colon cancer has a great 5-year survival rate – 90%.
There have been past studies which have shown that aspirin improves colon cancer survival, but this new study has come up with new evidence to support it.
They analyzed tumor tissue from 1000 patients will colon cancer, most of which were diagnosed with stage III or lower cancer. The results showed that 182 patients used aspirin in low-doses. There were 69 deaths in this lot, 37.9%. Of the rest of 817 patients who didn’t use aspirin, 396 dies, 48.5%
The researchers could say that low-doses of aspirin does indeed improve colon cancer survival, but unfortunately the team of researchers can’t figure out how aspirin manages to do what it does, in a molecular sense. They’re guessing that the drug affects the cancer cells and how they change into metastatic deposits.
Do you use aspirin on a daily basis? What are your thoughts on aspirin and colon cancer survival? Is aspirin really a miracle drug? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.
