MEN'S HEALTH Study: Aspirin may help lower prostate cancer risk

Other studies have suggested aspirin can help preventcolon cancer.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Though the evidence for it isn't as compelling as it is for some other cancers, aspirin may modestly reduce the risk that a man will develop prostate cancer, a large new study suggests.
Men who regularly took aspirin had a 15 percent lower risk of developing prostate cancer than nonusers, and those who took two or more pills a day had 20 percent less risk, the study found.
That's a relatively small reduction -- experts usually like to see risk cut in half to declare something substantially beneficial -- but it's large when considering the burden of disease. About 230,000 new cases of prostate cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the United States this year.
Looked at another way, the benefit that this study suggests from aspirin use isn't much less than the 25-percent reduction in risk that another study last year found for men taking finasteride, sold as Proscar. Those findings, which came from a more rigorously conducted study than the aspirin one, excited federal health officials so much that they stopped the study and declared the drug beneficial.
About NSAIDs
Aspirin is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID, a category that includes most over-the-counter pain medications except for acetaminophen (Tylenol). NSAIDs block a substance called COX-2, which triggers inflammation and is thought to play multiple roles in cancer's formation and spread.
Many studies suggest that aspirin can prevent colon cancer, but tests of it against hormone-fueled cancers such as breast and prostate have been mixed.
The most recent research gives reason for optimism. Last year, the Women's Health Initiative study found that aspirin cut breast cancer risk by 20 percent to 30 percent, and earlier this year, a pooled analysis of results on prostate cancer experiments concluded that aspirin might help.
The newest study adds to that notion. Results were presented at a recent meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando.
The drug does carry risks, such as bleeding ulcers or intracranial hemorrhage, and these risks rise with age, experts say.