Aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are important in fighting cancer – especially of the colon and breast cancer in women – these are the results of the latest research by American scientists
A team of scientists from the University of Pittsburgh led by prof. Lin Zhang set out to investigate the effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin in colorectal cancer. This is because research in this area since the 90s found that aspirin and other similar drugs actually help with this cancer, but it was not known how. More than a dozen studies conducted during this period indicated that aspirin and ibuprofen reduce the risk of colon polyps, easily transforming into cancerous tissue.
However, as it turned out, there is a complicated biochemical mechanism behind the action of aspirin. As prof. Zhang, the results of the research lead to the creation of superaspirin – a drug designed specifically to fight cancer, especially colorectal cancer, which also in Poland has become a plague in the last decade.
Researchers studied patients with colorectal cancer, dividing them into two groups: the first, which included patients who were taking aspirin or another non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) as an adjunct during the disease, and the second, where the patients were taking only chemotherapy drugs. Then they took samples from cancerous tumors of patients in both groups. The results of these studies were then compared with the results of studies in a mouse model where mice with colorectal cancer were treated with chemotherapeutic drugs or chemotherapeutic drugs supplemented with NSAID.
The results were unambiguous: tumors in people using adjunctive NSAIDs were smaller, less dangerous, most often not threatening to metastasis, and in many cases they died. It turned out that aspirin or another drug of this type activates the so-called cell death pathway leading to self-destruction of the cell. However, this only happens with intestinal stem cells that have mutated APC genes that cause them to malfunction and become cancerous. On the other hand, NSAID drugs do not work on healthy cells with the correct variant of the APC genes, which remain intact. As a result of the action of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, tumor cells die, while healthy intestinal cells remain intact. NSAIDs were found to protect against colon cancer – fewer cells could mutate and the mutant intestinal stem cells died quickly.
Interestingly, long-term research in the USA under the so-called The Women’s Health Initiative in 2000-2010 showed similar effects of NSAIDs in women with colorectal cancer. Women who took these drugs were significantly less likely to die of this type of cancer than those who did not use NSAIDs
Researchers from the University of Washington, conducting research on the use of aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in colorectal cancer as an adjunct, have studied cases of gastrointestinal disease in over 200 people. women. Some of them concerned menopausal and postmenopausal women, and some young women around 30 years of age. 2400 cases of cancer were detected and 520 cases of cancer death were verified.
As it turned out, women who took non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs during the study and in the three years after it showed 30 percent. lower mortality from colorectal cancer and higher survival from this cancer than women not taking NSAIDs. Women for whom NSAID was the first-of-choice anti-inflammatory and anti-cold medicine showed an even greater reduction in colorectal cancer mortality over 10 years – even by more than 40%, compared to those who did not use such drugs continuously.
As it turns out, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are inhibitory not only in the case of colorectal cancer. A team of scientists from the University of Texas, led by prof. Linda A. de Graffenried, proved their positive effect also in the case of breast cancer in women, and the higher the weight of the subject, the more pronounced this positive effect was.
The researchers studied women with a BMI of over 25. About half of the surveyed women had a BMI of 30 or more. These women were diagnosed with estrogen-dependent breast cancer at various stages. As it turned out, in women who had the alpha-positive estrogen receptor (ERα +), constant use of aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs causes that in the case of breast cancer by 52 percent. the risk of relapse is lower, and in more severe cases the period between relapses is at least 28 months.
For women with a BMI higher than 30, constant NSAID intake causes the number of relapses to be halved. According to prof. de Graffenried, this means that aspirin, by quenching the inflammatory pathways in the cell, postpones the recurrence of tumors and reduces the possibility of their occurrence by half. At the same time, this method of treatment is very little toxic and may provide additional enhancement of anti-cancer therapy.
The team from the University of Texas set out to investigate why this type of therapy works so well for overweight people: in the tested sample, in accordance with the American body standards, as noted by Prof. de Graffenried, as much as 58,5 percent. women were obese, and 25,8 percent. was overweight. Blood was collected from these women and an artificial neoplastic environment was created in the laboratory, containing cells of the immune system, fat and neoplastic. It turned out that without the influence of NSAIDs, fat cells activate the cancer cell environment, stimulating cancerous tumors to grow and making therapy difficult. In the case of administration of drugs from the group of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such activation did not take place, the growth of tumors was slow, chaotic, and they were easily treated.
Both the University of Texas team’s research on breast cancer and the research on colorectal cancer by researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh emphasize the importance of continuing this research. Over the next few years (the research plan covers the period up to 2020), scientists want to create and test clinically a drug based on an NSAID, tentatively called superaspirin, which, by suppressing pro-inflammatory effects, would also inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors. It is almost certain that after 2020, superaspirin will be a permanent ingredient in many anti-cancer therapies around the world.
Tekst: Marek Mejssner