Which link between low-dose aspirin and pancreatic cancer risk?

If you are not allergic to aspirin, you have probably used it since as far as you can remember to treat the common pain. In recent years, aspirin appeared to also have a prevention role such as preventing heart attack or stroke. A new study reveals new prevention role of low-dose aspiring, which taken regularly, may reduce the risk for developing pancreatic cancer in men and women by 48 percent. For the study, researchers recruited subjects from the 30 general hospitals between 2005 and 2009. There were 362 pancreatic cancer cases and 690 controls. Of the participants, 96 percent of low-dose aspirin users and 92 percent of regular-dose aspirin users reported daily aspirin use. Findings revealed that those who followed a low-dose aspirin regimen over six years or less had a 39 percent smaller risk of developing pancreatic cancer. For those that followed this regimen longer, their risk was even smaller. Patients with a daily low-dose aspirin regimen for 10 years or more saw a 60 percent reduced risk of pancreatic cancer. Researchers concluded that the earlier a person started regularly taking low-dose aspirin, the greater the pancreatic cancer risk reduction, ranging from 48 percent reduction in those who started three years before the study, to 60 percent in those who started taking it 20 years before the study. They explain that aspirin interrupts the inflammatory pathway in the body, which are part of the pathways that can lead to cancer. If you interrupt those pathways, theoretically that might be the reason why you lower the risk for cancer, they concluded. The discontinuation of aspirin use within two years prior to the study was associated with a threefold increased risk for pancreatic cancer compared with continuing use. As the medication also carries certain health risks, new patients should check with their primary care doctor before starting themselves on any new medications. ...

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