In the latest discovery regarding the healing aspirin cancer properties, a new study seems to suggest the correlation is so strong that ultimately patients suffering from certain types of cancer (particularly those in the gastrointestinal tract) could in fact double their chances of surviving the disease.
A recent study from the Netherlands made public earlier this week reveals the latest out of a string of discoveries regarding aspirin's cancer benefits, after its effects on cardiac patients (particularly due to the medication's anti-blood clot properties) have been tried time and time again.
According to WebMD, the latest aspirin cancer study was introduced to the world last Sunday during the European Cancer Congress in Vienna, and on it, those cancer patients' who took a daily dose of the analgesic were nearly two times more likely to survive certain types of cancer for 4 years than those who didn't receive this treatment.
Science Alert reports that, for this new aspirin cancer study, researchers collected data from nearly 14,000 cancer patients in the Netherlands, focusing on those who had been diagnosed with some sort of gastrointestinal cancer (most commonly colon, rectum and esophagus) between 1998 and 2011, with patients' health being followed for the next four years after starting treatment.
Dr. Martine Frouws, the lead author of this aspirin cancer study (from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands), has noted that, although in this time and age the biggest focus is on specialized treatments for patients, this might not be attainable for all of them, as these medicines are often expensive - so aspirin, being an over-the-counter and very cheap drug, could offer further treatment with very low cost.
"Through studying the characteristics of tumors in patients where aspirin was beneficial, we should be able to identify patients who could profit from such treatment in the future," said Frouws regarding the aspirin cancer study, according to The Guardian. "Given that aspirin is a cheap, off-patent drug with relatively few side-effects, this will have a great impact on healthcare systems as well as patients."