A new study shows that taking a daily aspirin tablet or capsule can double the chance of patients surviving gastrointestinal (GI) cancer. The research's findings add to other studies showing that the over-the-counter (OTC) pain-reliever medicine can be effective in the treatment and prevention of breast, skin, colon, and bowel cancers.
Findings of the study were presented at the recent 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria. It was led by Dr. Martine Frouws from the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.
The study included 13,715 cancer patients who were diagnosed from 1998 to 2011, and a follow-up was done an average of approximately four years later.
Dr. Frouws and his team wanted to learn how aspirin affects the survival rate of patients with cancerous tumors in their GI tract. That includes the esophagus, colon, and rectum.
After the follow-up study the searchers connected patient data with medication-dispensing data. The drug prescriptions were from the PHARMO Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Researchers learned that 30.5 percent of patients had used aspirin before their GI cancer diagnosis, according to Medical News Today. Meanwhile, 8.3 percent only used the pain reliever after their diagnosis, and 61.1 percent had not used the mild drug at all.
Researchers learned that patients who took aspirin after their cancer diagnoses had survival rates that were twice as high. That was compared to taking the meds before the diagnosis or not at all.
The medical team believes the results could be the result of the medicine's anti-platelet features. They could expose circulating tumor cells (CTCs), making them vulnerable to attacks.
Dr. Frouws noted that aspirin is a cheap OTC drug with few side effects. It could have a "great" effect on patients and health care systems, according to Nature World Report.
Bayer has manufactured and marketed Aspirin since 1899. Each year an estimated 40,000 metric tons (40,000,000 kilograms) are consumed worldwide.