Aspirin may prevent the spread of colorectal cancer

Aspirin is a common everyday medicine: it relieves headaches, toothaches, joint pains and even fever caused by flu and colds. The medicine does not require a prescription and is easily found in any pharmacy, but it may have greater benefits than previously imagined. A new study showed that long-term use of aspirin was associated with better results in stopping colorectal cancer from spreading throughout the body.

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Aspirin: a simple secret to stopping cancer

According to the New Atlas, one of the concerns with the recurrent use of aspirin was the increased risk of bleeding. However, this fell into disuse among medical authorities, which opened space for the discovery of new benefits of the medicine.

One of them is that regular and prolonged use of the drug in low doses was associated with better chances of stopping the progression of colorectal cancer.

A previous study led by Harvard researchers had already found that regular use of aspirin can prevent colorectal cancer by 11% and gastrointestinal cancer by 8% annually in the United States.

Now, another study, this time from Italy, has once again analyzed this relationship.

How the new study was carried out and conclusions

• For the research, scientists analyzed records of patients with colorectal surgery at the Chirurgia Generale Unit in Padua, Italy, from 2015 to 2019;
• There were 238 patients. Of these, 31% were considered aspirin users (took 100 mg per day);
• They then underwent an analysis of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, immunochemistry, and mutation data;
• The researchers found that regular aspirin use appeared to limit the spread of colorectal cancer, as well as producing greater numbers of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (which recognize cancer cells and kill them);
• A second group, within the total set of 238 patients, had a more in-depth analysis of lymphocytes. There were 130 patients;
• The research found that those who took aspirin regularly had a higher rate of epithelial CD80, a protein involved in the activation of cancerous immune cells.

Aspirin in cancer treatment

The research indicated that, in general, the proportion of neutrophils (cells in the body’s first line of defense) in patients taking aspirin is lower. The smaller the better to reduce morbidity and improve treatments in cases of cancer.

In other words, it appears that the medicine has an important role in helping the body’s first line of defense to stop the progression of the disease.

Of course, there are challenges, such as figuring out the drug’s long-term effects on cancer.

However, for now, researchers hope that the drug can be used as a complementary drug treatment to other treatments for the disease.