Saw this article just the other day.
HealthDay (10/25, Gardner) reported, "One of the world's most ubiquitous and pedestrian drugs -- aspirin -- may cut the risk of dying for men who have prostate cancer that has not yet spread beyond the gland." Indeed, there "has already been some evidence that cancer and the body's coagulation system might be linked in some way," researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School pointed out. "Cancer patients tend to develop clots in their legs and lungs more frequently and also patients who develop clots in their legs and lungs tend to develop cancer more frequently," realities that prompted the current study.
Investigators looked at 5,275 men who had tumors that had not gone beyond their prostate gland, Reuters (10/26, Fox) reports. Anticoagulants were being taken by 1,982 of the participants.
Some "10 years after diagnosis, 10% of men not taking one of these medications had died from prostate cancer vs. 4% of those who took an anticlotting medication," WebMD (10/25, Laino) reported. The "risk that cancer spread was also reduced by anticlotting medications, from 7% to 3%," and "43% of men who didn't take anticlotting medications had a recurrence of their cancer, compared with 33% of men who did take them." What's more, "men who took aspirin gained the greatest benefit."
Notably, the UK's Daily Mail (10/26, Hope) points out, the "findings come a week after a study found that healthy people can cut their risk of bowel cancer by taking 75mg of aspirin a day for five years. And earlier this year US researchers said the painkiller could help women with breast cancer."