A study comparing over half a million cancer patients (mostly colorectal, breast, or prostate patients) says those who took daily aspirin for reasons other than cancer lived longer and had fewer metastases. At any point after diagnosis, an additional 20 to 30 percent of the 120,000 aspirin-takers were still living. There were 400,000 non-aspirin-takers.
The article says, "There were very few studies of patients with other less common cancers, but on the whole the pooled evidence for all the cancers is suggestive of benefit from aspirin."
The study director was quoted as saying,
Patients with cancer should be given the evidence now available and be helped to make their own judgement of the balance between the risks and the benefits of daily low dose.
Evidence from further studies is urgently required, and patients should be strongly encouraged to participate in appropriate research studies.
All patients should consult their GP before starting new medication.
(That last point is really important. A member in one of our communities saw a report from popular media about the benefits of daily aspirin, thought it sounded good, and started taking it on her own. It caused a major and very scary interaction with a treatment drug she was taking. Ask your doctors before starting daily low-dose aspirin. Don't do it on your own.)
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podsart
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I saw something recently about using aspirin dosage based on your weight. I believe it was related to heart disease, however seems like that would be relevant here as well.
The one size fits all for so many treatments, medications, immunizations, even vitamins is something I've often questioned.
Note that the case for aspirin is that inhibition of platelet aggregation might counter the tendency for PCa to promote abnormal coagulation - which may play a part in metastasis. Thus, benefit might be more evident in long-term users (well before PCa diagnosis). Initiation of low-dose aspirin after diagnosis would not affect occult or known metastases but could prevent future mets.
See my other posts on abnormal cogagulation, nattokinase & D-dimer testing to monitor coagulation.
Note that we are hardly likely to see a PCa prevention study using aspirin, so some might argue that the 362 PubMed hits for <prostate aspirin> (observational studies when not cell or animal-based) should be disregarded. I don't use aspirin, but would if nattokinase did not exist. There is a scientific rationale for aspirin's benefit & I would be biased towards studies that have shown benefit. Of course, one could defer to the opinion of one's oncologist (who will probably never read the new study - after all, who has the time?)
There was an interesting article in Medscape about recent studies of aspirin as a preventative treatment. The conclusion seemed to be that aspirin may have been of some value in the past but there are better preventives now and the studies have shown no benefit for aspirin either in cardiovascular or cancer diseases - even including colon cancer where past evidence seemed strong. It's not about treatment per se, only about prevention, but it did look at overall mortality. Here's the link:medscape.com/viewarticle/90...
The article includes a very nice 4-1/2 minute video summarizing the results. The video includes a nice section on how it requires multiple studies to establish anything at all with any confidence.
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