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Study Links Aspirin to Colon Cancer Survival

This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from voaspecialenglish.com People since ancient times have used aspirin-like medicines to fight pain and reduce high body temperature. Modern research has found other uses for aspirin. The drug acts as a blood thinner. It can help blood flow past a blockage in an artery. Blockages can cause heart attacks or strokes. As a result, patients at risk of blockages might be advised by their doctors to take a low-strength aspirin every day. And research continues. A new study has shown that aspirin can improve survival in colon cancer patients.It involved about one thousand three hundred patients with colorectal cancer. The cancer had not spread to other parts of the body yet. The study compared patients who took three hundred twenty-five milligrams of aspirin at least two times a week with those who did not use aspirin. The study found that the aspirin users had an almost thirty percent lower risk of dying from their cancer. That was during an average of eleven years after the cancer was discovered. Andrew Chan of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital led the study. Doctor Chan says the effects appeared especially strong among patients with tumors expressing an enzyme called COX-2. Two-thirds of colorectal cancers produce that chemical. Doctor Chan thinks the aspirin works by blocking it. The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was an observational study. In a controlled study ...