Aspirin study indicates protective effect against breast cancer.

Aspirin has been shown in numerous studies to substantially reduce the risk of many types of cancer.

Life Extension has long advocated that those stricken with cancer ask their oncologist about adding aspirin as an adjuvant therapy, as studies show improved survival in cancer patients who take aspirin.

In the journal Laboratory Investigation, researchers at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center report a protective effect for aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) against the development of breast cancer in cell cultures and in mice that received tumor implants.* The findings also suggest a role for aspirin in preventing breast cancer relapse.

By administering varying doses of aspirin to breast cancer cell cultures, Sushanta K. Banerjee and colleagues found an increase in the rate of cell death and a reduction in growth among surviving cells. In mice that received implanted breast cancer tumors, 15 days of low-dose aspirin therapy resulted in tumors that were 47% smaller on average than those of animals who did not receive the drug. And in another experiment, mice that were pretreated with aspirin for 10 days prior to cancer cell exposure were found to have less cancerous growth in comparison with those that were not pretreated.

Editor's Note: "We find that acetylsalicylic acid not only prevents breast tumor cell growth in vitro and tumor growth in nude mice xenograft model through the induction of apoptosis, but also significantly reduces the self-renewal capacity and growth of breast tumor-initiating cells/breast cancer stem cells and delays the formation of a palpable tumor," Dr. Banerjee and associates report.

Reference

* Lab Invest. 2015 Apr 13.