The results of a new study show aspirin therapy may reduce the likelihood of colon cancer killing patients whose tumors have a specific gene mutation, according to a news release.
The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the results were reported in the Oct. 25 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
In a study of more than 950 patients with colorectal cancer, researchers found that aspirin use by patients whose tumors harbored a mutation in the gene PIK3CA produced a notable increase in survival rate. Five years after the cancer diagnosis of those patients with the mutation, 97 percent of patients taking aspirin were still alive, compared to 74 percent of those not using aspirin.
Aspirin had no impact on five-year survival rates among patients without the mutation.
"Our results suggest that aspirin can be particularly effective in prolonging survival among patients whose colorectal cancer tests positive for a mutation in PIK3CA," said the study's senior author, Shuji Ogino, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health, in the release. "For the first time, we have a genetic marker that can help doctors determine which colorectal cancers are likely to respond to a particular therapy."
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