Aspirin against cancer: do not self-medicate!
Aspirin as a savior from cancer: a mammologist's view
Alexey Vodovozov, ABC magazineAcetylsalicylic acid (ASA) is a unique medicine.
For more than a hundred years, it has been successfully synthesized and used no less successfully. But for almost 80 years, doctors have been using ASK without knowing the exact mechanism of its action. He became known only in 1971, thanks to the work of the English biochemist John Wayne. It turned out that ASA inhibits the synthesis of special biologically active substances in our body – prostaglandins. They are involved in the regulation of body temperature, in inflammatory reactions, in the work of the blood coagulation system. That is why ASK has such a wide range of actions. In 1982, John Wayne and his Swedish colleagues Sune Bergstrom and Bengt Samuelson received the Nobel Prize for this discovery.
Salicylic surprisesNew horizons are still opening up in the use of acetylsalicylic acid.
Often – in the most unexpected areas of medicine. For example, in oncology.
Scientists from Oxford University, after 20 years of observation of 7,500 volunteers, found that daily intake of 300 mg of ASA for 5 years reduced the risk of colon cancer by 74 percent. According to the head of research, Dr. Peter Rothwell, it makes sense to take ASK for people with a hereditary predisposition to bowel cancer.
American doctors from the National Cancer Institute, summarizing the results of 17 studies involving more than 300 thousand people, found that regular intake of ASA reduces the risk of stomach cancer by 40 percent. And this is despite the fact that the effect of ASA on the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract is hardly favorable.
British doctors from Guy's Hospital in London, who analyzed data from 21 studies involving 37 thousand women, concluded that taking ASK daily reduces the risk of developing breast cancer by 20 percent.
Harvard NewsAnd here is the news about ASK again, this time in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
American scientists have reported that ASC significantly reduces the risk of disease progression and death in breast cancer in the early stages.
The study involved 4,164 American women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1976 and 2002. Scientists were looking for a relationship between the development of the disease and taking aspirin. The drug was taken at certain intervals (0, 1, 2-5, 6-7 days a week) for a year after diagnosis.
According to the results obtained, ASA did reduce the risk of death, and the more often patients took it, the lower the risk of death from cancer. This fact was confirmed by statistical data for all groups of study participants, and it did not depend on the stage of the disease, menopausal status, body mass index or the state of estrogen receptors
According to preliminary data, there is a similar dependence for the risk of recurrence of breast cancer after treatment.
While scientists have not been able to explain exactly what caused this effect of aspirin, however, according to the head of the study, Michael Holmes (Michelle Holmes) from Harvard Medical School in Boston (Massachusetts), it may be worth revisiting the theories about cancer as an "inflammatory disease", because aspirin really relieves inflammation well.
However, Dr. Holmes clarified that so far he and his colleagues do not recommend including aspirin in therapy for the first year after diagnosis.
Mammologist's commentThe results of the study for FOX News were commented on by the mammalogist Tsinara Kumer.
We give her answers to some questions and strongly recommend that you listen to them.
Based on this research, will you use ASK in your practice?Only if the patient does not have conditions and diseases in which this drug may be dangerous.
How does ASK act on the tumor?As the study showed, anti-inflammatory mechanisms triggered by the drug are triggered.
Daily aspirin intake has the same effect on estrogen-dependent and estrogen-independent tumors?According to this study, yes.
Can ASK be recommended only to women with pre-existing cancer or can it be used for preventive purposes in high-risk groups?4,000 women who participated in the study took ASA precisely for preventive purposes, however, for the prevention of coronary heart disease.
But in those who later developed breast cancer, the disease spread more slowly and less often led to death.
Do women who are currently undergoing cancer treatment need to start taking ASK?Not if they are undergoing radiation therapy or preparing for surgery.
In this case, they have a fairly high risk of damage to the gastric mucosa (in the first case) and prolonged postoperative bleeding (in the second). Also, many chemotherapy drugs may be incompatible with ASA. In any case, the decision should be made by the attending oncologist of each particular patient.
Can women with advanced stages of cancer take ASK daily in the hope of its newly discovered properties?No.
Because there is only a potential possibility that ASC will be effective in the later stages of the disease. To find out, new and large-scale research is needed. The main thing that has been determined at the moment is the mechanism of action of ASA on the tumor. How it will work in different conditions, in different patients and at different stages remains to be seen.
Can women with breast cancer take ASA instead of the treatment traditionally used in such cases?In no case, no one can make such decisions, especially if we are talking about such a serious disease as breast cancer.
Each patient should select the appropriate treatment for her only together with her attending doctor. ASK can be taken only in some cases and only as a supplement to the main treatment. After all, we do not yet know what will be discovered during future research.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.02.2010