Physicians should prescribe aspirin to anyone with advanced polyps, according to a significant new warning from a major industry task force, unless there’s a specific reason not to.
The task force, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is a group of experts in primary care and prevention that reviews evidence from different studies, and comes up with recommendations for preventative medical care. They have concluded that aspirin reduces the risk of colorectal cancer by 40 percent as well as recurrence of advanced polyps. According to their guidelines, without a specific “contraindication,” or reason not to, health care providers should routinely prescribe aspirin to all patients with advanced colorectal polyps.
Read MorePolyps are clusters of cells that can form in the body, and some people are more predisposed to them than others. While some people will have lots of polyps in internal organs, many will go their whole lives without any at all.
It’s important to note that the study, which was published in The Lancet, also showed that taking aspirin and Omega-3s did not lower the likelihood of having any polyps at allin other words, patients who took aspirin and Omega-3s with bowel polyps were not less likely to have polyps entirely, but they did have fewer than patients who did not take the vitamins.
The results of the study are exciting, says Mark Hull, the lead author of the so-called “seAFOod” study and Professor of Molecular Gastroenterology at the University of Leeds, because both aspirin and Omega-3s are relatively safe to take and give doctors a new option when screening patients who are at high risk for bowel cancer.
The study looked at 700 patients across 53 hospitals in England, all of whom were identified as high risk for bowel cancer after colonoscopies, a procedure that uses a camera to look for polyps in the bowel and colon. At the end of the one-year study, patients who took 300 milligrams of aspirin per day had 22% fewer polyps than patients who took a placebo; similarly, patients who took two grams of Omega-3 EPA daily had 9% fewer polyps overall and 25% fewer polyps on the left side of their bowels.
Aspirin
Patients who took 300 mg of Aspirin per day had
The Lancet
fewer pre-cancerous bowel polyps than those who did not.
There are a number of previous studies that have examined the influence vitamins have on cancer. For example, a recent study called the VITAL study, found that taking Omega-3s, among other vitamins, does not lower risk of certain other cancers, including breast, prostate and colorectal. There have also been a number of studies that produced varied results about how effective aspirin is, but there is some evidence that it can help lower the risk of ovarian, liver and prostate cancers.
And, of course, there are other risks and side effects that come with taking aspirin regularly. Dr. Stephen Freedland, Urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told SurvivorNet that although there is evidence of aspirin helping to reduce prostate cancer by 10% to 15%, it’s not the answer for everyone. “It needs to be offset with the risks of aspirin, which can increase bleeding, increase certain types of strokes,” he says. Be sure to talk with your doctor about if aspirin or Omega-3s are right for you and, if so, the proper dosage to take.
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