Researchers have
discovered that women who had been prescribed aspirin regularly before being
diagnosed with breast cancer are less likely to have cancer that spread to the
lymph-nodes than women who were not on prescription aspirin. These women are
also less likely to die from their breast cancer.
The study of Irish
patients funded by the Irish Health Research Board and Irish Cancer Society and
published by the American Association for Cancer Research in the Journal, Cancer
Research, analyses records from the National Cancer Registry Ireland
(NCRI), and prescription data from the General Medical Service (GMS) pharmacy
claims database.
"Our findings
suggest that aspirin could play a role in reducing mortality from breast cancer
by preventing the cancer spreading to nearby lymph nodes", said Dr Ian
Barron, the lead author who carried out the research at Trinity College Dublin,
and is now working at Johns Hopkins, USA.
"We analysed data
from 2,796 women with stage I-III breast cancer. We found that those women
prescribed aspirin in the years immediately prior to their breast cancer
diagnosis were statistically significantly less likely to present with a lymph
node-positive* breast cancer than non-users. The association was strongest
among women prescribed aspirin regularly and women prescribed higher aspirin
doses. We now need to establish how and why this is the case".
The findings are
consistent with two other major studies. The first is an analysis of
cardiovascular trials where pre-diagnostic aspirin** use was associated with a
statistically significant reduction in the risk of developing metastases and
dying from cancer.
The second is an
observation from in vivo breast cancer models, which suggest a possible
mechanism by which aspirin may reduce the risk of cancer spreading to other
parts of the body.
Professor Kathleen
Bennett, a co-author from the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics,
School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin said: "Our study was
observational and these results do not mean that women should start taking
aspirin as a precautionary measure. Aspirin can have serious side effects. We
still need to identify exactly how aspirin may prevent breast cancer from
spreading to the lymph nodes; which women, or types of breast cancer, are most
likely to benefit from taking aspirin; as well as what the optimum doses might
be. Research to help answer the next questions is funded by the Irish Cancer
Society as part of its first National Collaborative Cancer Research Centre,
BREAST-PREDICT".
Dr Graham Love, Chief
Executive of the Irish Health Research Board said: "These results have
great potential to help improve our understanding of how to increase Irish and
global survival rates from breast cancer."
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More details on the
research paper are available at the link below. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/74/15/4065.full?sid=e5351c14-2cff-4bf8-ac16-1c69e6ebdcec
cancerres.aacrjournals.org
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