August 6, 2014

aspirin and cancer: should we be taking a pill every day?

Recent work suggests that daily doses of aspirin may help to reduce cancer, however, using drugs prophylactically is often controversial and in a period of debate around over-medicalisation researchers have been concerned whether the benefits are actually outweighed by the harms of side-effects.

An international group of scientists have assessed the most recent systematic reviews of 25 harmful effects of aspirin and are publishing their findings in the journal Annals of Oncology.

Two of the authors came to the SMC to discuss issues such as:

• What are the pros and cons of taking daily aspirin?
• How many deaths might potentially be delayed by taking aspirin and how many deaths or other harms would be caused by taking aspirin?
• How long does it take to get a benefit from aspirin? Is there a lasting benefit after taking it?
• Is there an ideal dose to take? Are higher doses more beneficial but also more toxic?
• Are there questions that still need to be answered?

Speakers:

Prof Jack Cuzick, Director of Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and Head of Centre for Cancer Prevention, Queen Mary University of London

Dr Mangesh Thorat, Researcher, Centre for Cancer Prevention, Queen Mary University of London