Aspirin May Help Prevent Colorectal Cancer

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: February 11, 2009 Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 11 -- For patients with a history of colorectal adenomas, aspirin may prevent a recurrence, a meta-analysis showed. Patients taking daily aspirin for at least a year had a 17% reduced risk of developing recurrent adenomas, precursors of colorectal cancer (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.96), Bernard Cole, Ph.D., of the University of Vermont here, and colleagues found in a review of four randomized placebo-controlled trials. This corresponded to an absolute risk reduction of 6.7% (95% CI 3.2% to 10.2%), they reported in the Feb. 18 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute./.../