A new study, published in Hepatology, found that aspirin use is associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing bile duct cancer.
The hospital-based case-control study included 2,395 bile duct cancer, or cholangiocarcinoma cases seen at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., from 2000 through 2014. Around 591 bile duct cancer patients cases and 2,129 control patients took aspirin.
Here are three observations:
1. Aspirin use was significantly associated with a 2.7 to 3.6-fold decreased risk for the three bile duct cancer subtypes — intrahepatic, perihilar and distal.
2. Primary sclerosing cholangitis was more strongly associated with perihilar than intrahepatic or distal CCA.
3. However, diabetes was more associated with distal than perihilar or intrahepatic CCA.
"Our study demonstrates that individual risk factors confer risk of different CCA subtypes to different extents," the study authors wrote.