Aspirin may help halt spread of breast cancer

Women with breast cancer who took aspirin regularly before being diagnosed with the condition are less likely to see the illness spread to other parts of the body.

The potentially groundbreaking finding has been made by Irish experts examining the implications of long-term use of the drug in combating the condition.

Just days after similar claims were made by a British study into the popular pill, an examination funded by the Health Research Board and the Irish Cancer Society, has found regular doses of aspirin could be key to battling the illness.

However, despite the import of the finding, researchers behind both studies have urged caution, warning the public not to start taking daily aspirin pills until further research into how to avoid unrelated health dangers linked to long-term use of the drug are resolved.

The Irish research was based on 2,700 women with various stages of breast cancer in Ireland.

Women who were regularly prescribed aspirin before being diagnosed with the condition were far less likely to see their cancer spread to other parts of the body.

The study’s lead author and Trinity College researcher, Dr Ian Barron, said it is believed aspirin may be able to prevent cancer cells from developing on the lymph nodes — which help spread the condition to other areas.

However, while welcoming the discovery, he and study co-author, Prof Kathleen Bennett, said further research was needed to “establish how and why this is the case”.

“Our study was observational and these results do not mean that women should start taking aspirin as a precautionary measure. Aspirin can have serious side-effects.

“We still need to identify exactly how aspirin may prevent breast cancer from spreading to the lymph nodes; which women, or types of breast cancer are most likely to benefit from taking aspirin; as well as what the optimum doses might be,” Prof Bennett said.

The Irish study’s finding comes just a week after research in Britain suggested that taking aspirin every day for 10 years could save tens of thousands of people from dying of cancer.

However, the same research also said that for every 17 people likely to avoid death by cancer, four others are likely to die from heart, stroke and stomach ulcers linked to long-term use of aspirin.

The Irish and British studies can be read in full in medical journals Cancer Research and the Annals of Oncology.

Miracle drug

While scientists are still trying to determine the reason why aspirin may help to prevent cancer, they have two workable theories.

The first is that as the drug reduces inflammation, it lowers the risk of cancer cells — which divide in part because of inflammation in the body — from spreading and mutating.

The second theory involves how cancer cells piggyback on blood platelets, which help the blood to clot. Aspirin thins the blood by making platelets less sticky, which may also make it harder for them to carry cancer cells, thereby preventing them from spreading.

The Irish Cancer Society’s freephone helpline can be contacted on 1800 200 700.