Newsweek (4/20, Firger, 693K) reports that research suggests “taking low-dose aspirin while undergoing cancer treatment may increase a patient’s chance of survival by as much as 20 percent.” The findings were published in PLOS ONE. Researchers looked at data from “five randomized trials and 42 observational studies on patients with breast, prostate and colorectal cancers.” The investigators “found there was a significant reduction in mortality in patients who took daily low-dose aspirin.”
Medical Daily (4/20, Baulkman, 170K) reports that aspirin also “helped stop the cancer from spreading.” These “findings echo findings from previous studies.”
HealthDay (4/20, Norton, 14K) points out, however, that there are certain risks associated with aspirin use. A patient’s primary care physician and “oncologist are key players in this ‘critical’ decision, said Dr. Sumanta Kumar Pal,” a spokesman for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The primary care physician “can help assess your bleeding risk, while the oncologist is essential for ‘dissecting the complicated literature pertaining to aspirin within a selected cancer type,’ said Pal.”