Breast Cancer Survivors Who Take Aspirin Live Longer
Last Updated: 2010-02-16 19:22:27 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Breast cancer survivors who take aspirin regularly may live longer and be less likely to see their cancer return, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Data from more than 4,000 participants in the Nurses' Health Study showed that those who took aspirin - usually to prevent heart disease - had a 50% lower risk of dying from breast cancer and a 50% lower risk that the cancer would spread.
"This is the first study to find that aspirin can significantly reduce the risk of cancer spread and death for women who have been treated for early stage breast cancer," said Dr. Michelle Holmes of Harvard Medical School, who led the study, which was reported online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on February 16.
"If these findings are confirmed in other clinical trials, taking aspirin may become another simple, low-cost and relatively safe tool to help women with breast cancer live longer, healthier lives," she added in a statement.
Still, other experts said the study might overestimate the benefits of aspirin because women with recurrent breast cancer are advised to stop taking it. That means some of the women who were more likely to take aspirin might have been healthier anyway.
"It would be premature for breast cancer survivors to use aspirin in order to reduce risk of breast cancer recurrence or of dying from their disease," Eric Jacobs of the American Cancer Society told Reuters Health by e-mail.
Dr. Holmes and her team studied 4,164 women in the Nurses' Health Study. Starting with data from 1976, analyzed aspirin use, breast cancer rates and all-cause mortality through 2006.
Over this time, 341 of the women died of breast cancer.
Women who took aspirin two to five days a week had a 60% reduced risk of their cancer spreading and a 71% lower risk of death from breast cancer.
Most of the women were taking low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks and stroke.
Other non-steroidal inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) also apparently lowered the risks.
But there was not enough data on these drugs to give a clear answer.
The researchers said they are not sure how aspirin and other NSAIDS may affect tumors, but it could be by lowering inflammation. Other studies have shown that aspirin and ibuprofen can lower colon cancer risk, for instance.
"Aspirin has relatively benign adverse effects compared with cancer chemotherapeutic drugs and may also prevent colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, and stroke," the researchers wrote. It affected both estrogen receptor-positive and -negative tumors.
Dr. Holmes' team stressed that patients should not take aspirin while undergoing radiation or chemotherapy because of the risk of side effects.
J Clin Oncol 2010.
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