Aspirin Lowers Colon Cancer Risk in People with Specific Gene

Aspirin is an anti-inflammatory drug and has been around for over a century now. The drug has relieved headache, fever and minor aches in millions of people.

Cancers that affect colon and rectum are called colorectal cancers. It is the fourth most common cancer in both men and women in the U.S. According to estimates by the National Cancer Institute, some 96,830 cancers of colon and 40,000 of rectal will be diagnosed in the year 2014.

Previous research has shown that daily dose of aspirin can lower colorectal cancer risk. However, scientists could never explain why some people benefited from the daily dosage, while others did not. The study shows that it is a gene that determines whether or not a person will have lower colon cancer risk.

For the study, researchers examined tissue samples of 270 colon cancer patients who were part of 127 865 participants.

"If you looked at the folks from the study who had high 15-PGDH levels and took aspirin, they cut their risk of colon cancer by half," said senior author Sanford Markowitz, MD, PhD, Ingalls Professor of Cancer Genetics at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. "If you looked at the folks from the study that were low for 15-PGDH, they did not benefit at all from taking aspirin. These findings represent a clean Yes-No about who would benefit from aspirin."

In the next part of the study, researchers will be developing a test that measures levels of 15-PGDH in the colon. The test would enable doctors to prescribe aspirin to people who could benefit from the drug.

The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine and is supported by Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA).