People with a genetic susceptibility to colon cancer could cut their chances of developing the disease in half by taking a daily dose of aspirin, researchers said on Monday.
The finding might lead to other treatments by helping researchers understand how aspirin combats colon cancer, one of the top three cancers in rich countries.
Though aspirin has been used widely for years to treat minor aches and to alleviate fevers, it can irritate the stomach and intestines and cause major bleeding.
European researchers followed more than 1,000 people with Lynch syndrome, a genetic mutation that makes them vulnerable to cancers in the colon, rectum, stomach, brain, liver, womb and elsewhere. The syndrome accounts for about 5 per cent of all colon cancers.
About half of the study participants were given 600 milligrams, or two aspirin pills daily, while the other half got placebo pills for about four years.
In the group that got aspirin, six people developed colon cancer, versus 16 in the group that got placebos. “We are delighted,” said John Burn of Newcastle University in Britain, who led the study.
“All the more so because we stopped giving the aspirin after four years, yet the effect is continuing,” he said in a statement.
Burn presented the study results today in Berlin at a joint meeting of the European Cancer Organisation and the European Society for Medical Oncology.