Aspirin Helps Those Diagnosed with Colon Cancer Live Longer

There is good news in the fight against the second deadliest form of cancer, colorectal cancer: a treatment could be as close as your very own medicine cabinet.
Dr. Jennifer Ashton appeared on The Early Show Wednesday to discuss the new findings.
Nearly 50,000 Americans will die of this disease this year alone. But the new research finds something as simple as Aspirin could help those diagnosed with colon cancer live longer , CBS news reports.

However, the influence of aspirin on survival after diagnosis of colorectal cancer has been unknown.
Dr. Andrew Chan of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues studied aspirin use in 1,279 men and women with colorectal cancer that had not spread to other parts of the body.
They found that people who took aspirin regularly after their diagnosis were nearly 29 percent less likely to die from their cancer than people who did not take aspirin. These people also were 21 percent less likely to die for any reason while they were in the study lasting more than two decades , Times of India reports.

As part of the new study, the researchers analyzed the tumors that were available from a subgroup of 459 patients, and discovered that those whose tumors overexpressed the COX-2 enzyme were particularly responsive to aspirin use. Among those patients, regular aspirin use was associated with a 61 percent drop in death rate compared with patients who used aspirin but had tumors that did not express COX-2 or had only weak expression , New York Times reports.