Aspirin's Best for Breast

What we love about "following the money" in research is you don't do like the news programs and run from one new study to the next. The information comes from Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). What is the information?

"Animal and in vitro studies suggest that aspirin may inhibit breast cancer metastasis. We studied whether aspirin use among women with breast cancer decreased their risk of death from breast cancer... There were 341 breast cancer deaths. Aspirin use was associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer death... Among women living at least 1 year after a breast cancer diagnosis, aspirin use was associated with a decreased risk of distant recurrence and breast cancer death." (JCO)

The information is important and Brigham and Women's has been doing research on aspirin from 1976 to date. All the information isn't online but much of it still is. You would think that all the information is consistent with the latest release but surprisingly it isn't. While we only have access to the abstract from the Journal of Clinical Oncology the Hospital does have some of the information on their website in a press release.

“In this study, we saw that women who used aspirin had a significant reduction in the risk of death and recurrence of the disease when compared to women who did not use aspirin,” said Michelle Holmes, MD, DrPH, lead author of the paper and a researcher and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Channing Laboratory at BWH. (BWH)

Though the release is recent the research subjects ended at 2002. Cancer isn't the only benefit to those who use aspirin. We've run earlier articles on the research as has Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"Low-dose Aspirin Shown to Reduce Risk of First Stroke in Women - Results of 10-year clinical trial suggest most consistent benefits among women 65 years and older - Boston, MA – In a long-awaited clinical trial conducted among nearly 40,000 initially healthy middle-aged American women, regular use of low-dose aspirin over a ten-year period was found to reduce the risk of stroke 17 percent. However, among the same population, researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) also found that low-dose aspirin did not benefit most women in terms of preventing first heart attacks or cardiac deaths." (March 2005)

Less than four (4) months laters Brigham and Women's Hospital found different results.

BWH WHS researchers found in this healthy population that regular, low-dose aspirin had no overall effect in preventing cancer, including breast, colorectal and other site-specific cancers. However, researchers did find that regular low-dose aspirin therapy could confer some protection against lung cancer but recommend further study to clarify these findings. The researchers, also of Harvard Medical School, could not rule out benefits of higher doses of aspirin. In addition, researchers identified that regular intake of vitamin E supplements did not help prevent overall cardiovascular disease or cancer and did not affect total mortality. However, vitamin E did reduce cardiovascular mortality and, again, researchers recommend that this finding be explored her. (July 2005)

So the problem might just be how much is enough? The abstract doesn't really say what the magic number is, nor does the current press release. What the hospital did was eventually come to the conclusion that we came to in August 2009. Back then we said or rather discovered:

“(T)hough aspirin doesn't protect women from heart attacks their studies showed less usage provided an equal amount of results from a less frequent amount of aspirin. "Regular use of low-dose aspirin does not prevent first heart attacks in women younger than 65, as it does in men, a 10-year study of healthy women has found... ...The amount of aspirin taken by subjects in the Women's Health Study - 100 milligrams every other day - is less than the amount one gets from taking a baby aspirin, which contains 81 milligrams, every day. But the researchers noted that the smaller amount still had the intended effect on blood clotting, as evidenced by blood analyses, by reduced risk of stroke and by the greater incidence of bleeding" the March 2008 New York Times reported.” (PearlieMaes August 2009)

What Brigham and Women's Hospital eventually reported in December of 2009 was:

"Although our study found no large benefit from low-dose aspirin, the possible modest protective effect we did find warrants further study," said William G. Christen, ScD of BWH. "If future studies confirm our findings, it could be important to make the public aware of this benefit," he added.

Their research was first published in the December issue of Ophthalmology:

"Researchers, led by William G. Christen, ScD of BWH, looked at records for 39,421 women enrolled in the 10-year Women's Health Study (WHS) were used to evaluate the impact of low-dose aspirin on AMD risk. None of the women had AMD at the study outset; they were randomly assigned to take low-dose aspirin (100 mg on alternate days) or a placebo. It is known that low-dose aspirin substantially reduces the risk of serious blood vessel blockage, so researchers reasoned it might affect blood vessels that may play a role in AMD. Aspirin's anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects were also considered potentially relevant. The research was supported by the National Eye Institute."

Now that's the way a news story is suppose to go. Give us all the information currently available and that way we can make an informed decision. The same researchers that brought us: Aspirin good. Cancer bad! Brigham and Women's Hospital found some other uses for aspirin beyond the breast.