A recent meta-analysis study has corroborated earlier studies showing that regular aspirin may reduce the risk of gastrointestinal cancers, including pancreatic, colorectal, and esophageal cancers. The study was reported in Annals of Oncology.
The decreases, based on taking one or two aspirin per week, ranged from 22% for pancreatic cancer to 39% for gastric cardia and esophageal adenocarcinomas. Other cancers, such as stomach cancer, and hepatobiliary cancers, had a smaller reduction. Reduction of the risk for colorectal cancers was related to dosage, i.e., higher doses led to greater reduction. The study’s authors cautioned that “the estimate for high-dose aspirin was based on just a few studies and should be interpreted cautiously.”
Emmanouil Pappou, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said the findings support observational analyses showing a modest risk reduction in CRC with aspirin.
“The thing is you have to take aspirin for a long time, at least 10 years, to have a benefit, and a high dose is better. And most interventional studies have found no protective effect,” he said.
He also noted that any modest benefits in reducing cancers must be weighed against the risks of bleeding, ulcers, and perforations. He further stated that aspirin use may not reduce the risks of recurrence or metastases of colorectal cancers.
The authors of the study also stated: “While aspirin has long been observed to reduce colorectal cancer, the quantification of risk reduction and the optimal dose and duration of aspirin use for the prevention of colon and other GI cancers has been unclear.”
Improvements in medicine, whether related to cancer risk reduction or other areas, is a slow, meticulous process, involving many studies like the one reported here. But studies like this allows other researchers to correlate with their studies and slowly add to the body of medical knowledge.
Read the study here: Aspirin and the risk of colorectal and other digestive tract cancers: an updated meta-analysis through 2019
Read some of our earlier discussions of Aspirin and GI conditions here.
