A study by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, says that
aspirin can help prolong the life of some people with colorectal cancer tumors.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that aspirin produced a sharp jump in survival among patients who had the gene PIK3CA in their cancer tumor, which is about 20 percent of colorectal cancer patients.
However, researchers said that aspirin had no impact on survival rates among patients without a PIK3CA mutation, reports RawStory.com
Lead author Shuji Ogino, of the Harvard School of Public Health, said in a press 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.”
The National Cancer Institute expects some 140,000 Americans to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and some 50,000 to die from it this year.