A PILL sitting in many medicine cabinets may protect women against skin cancer.
Aspirin, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), is known to protect against heart disease and colorectal cancer.
Now, data from 59,806 white women in the US supports the idea that it also protects against melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Over a 12-year period, incidence of melanoma was 21 per cent lower in women taking high-dose aspirin at least twice a week than in people not taking NSAIDs regularly. In all, 115 of the 15,089 aspirin-takers developed melanoma, compared with 344 of 35,529 people (Cancer, DOI: 10.1002/cncr.27817).
A likely explanation is that aspirin dampens inflammation pathways that aggravate the spread of the cancer, says Jean Tang of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, who led the study.
"These findings need to be followed up to find out if there's a real effect," says Hazel Nunn, head of health information at Cancer Research UK. She adds that melanoma is largely preventable by protecting skin from sunburn.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Lowly aspirin fights deadly skin cancer"
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