Friday, August 15, 2014

Aspirin benefits overweight breast cancer patients


Researchers have determined that postmenopausal overweight or obese breast cancer patients receiving hormone therapy as part of their treatment and who use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin or ibuprofen have significantly lower breast cancer recurrence rates and a sizable delay in time to cancer recurrence.
The findings, published in the Aug. 14 2014 edition of Cancer Research, suggest a new possibility for reducing the incidence of breast cancer recurrence among overweight and obese postmenopausal women, who have a comparatively higher risk of recurrence.
Using a retrospective analysis of human subjects and cell cultures, the researchers determined that NSAID use reduces the recurrence rate of the most common form of breast cancer, ERĪ± positive breast cancer, by 50 percent and extends patients' disease-free period by more than two years. ER positive breast cancers, which grow in response to exposure to the hormone estrogen, account for about 75 percent of diagnoses.
The investigators caution that these results are preliminary, and studies are being conducted to confirm these initial findings.
The investigators first examined medical records of 440 breast cancer patients, comparing the prognoses of those who took NSAIDs with those who did not.
Although the mechanism causing breast cancer in obese women to be more aggressive and less responsive to treatment is not completely understood, the researchers believe that inflammation plays a pivotal role.

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