By Vishwam Sankaran
Copyright independent
A groundbreaking new clinical trial has found that taking a low dose of the common fever medicine Aspirin halves the risk of gut cancer recurrence after tumour surgery.
Over two million people worldwide are diagnosed with colorectal cancer every year, with up to 40 per cent of these patients facing the risk of tumour cells spreading from the gut to other parts of the body, making treatment more difficult.
Previous studies have hinted that aspirin may also lower the risk of recurrence after surgery in patients with colorectal cancer, especially those with mutations linked to the body’s PIK3 molecule signalling pathway.
This pathway plays a key role in processes like cell growth and division, and when dysregulated, it can lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation and cancer development, scientists explain.
In the new clinical trial, researchers studied the effects of aspirin on 3,500 patients with colon and rectal cancer from 33 hospitals in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland.
About 40 per cent of the patients, whose tumours showed a mutation in the PIK3 signalling pathway, received either 160 mg of aspirin daily or a decoy placebo drug for three years after surgery.
In patients with the PIK3 genetic mutation who took aspirin, the risk of gut cancer recurrence was reduced by 55 per cent compared with the placebo group, according to the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Aspirin led to a significantly lower incidence of colorectal cancer recurrence than placebo among patients with PIK3CA hotspot mutations,” scientists wrote.
“Aspirin is being tested here in a completely new context as a precision medicine treatment. This is a clear example of how we can use genetic information to personalise treatment and at the same time save both resources and suffering,” said study first author Anna Martling from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet.
Researchers suspect aspirin induces a combination of effects by reducing inflammation, inhibiting platelet function and tumour growth in the patients.
“Although we do not yet fully understand all the molecular links, the findings strongly support the biological rationale and suggest that the treatment may be particularly effective in genetically defined subgroups of patients,” Dr Martling said.
Scientists hope the findings could have global significance and influence treatment guidelines for gut cancer worldwide.
“Aspirin is a drug that is readily available globally and extremely inexpensive compared to many modern cancer drugs, which is very positive,” Dr Martling said.
