Study shows aspirin won’t prevent breast cancer coming back

Taking aspirin after breast cancer does not reduce the risk of cancer coming back, according to results of a clinical trial in the USA.

Led by Dr Wendy Chen at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, the trial involved 3021 people aged ≥70 years, who had high-risk HER2- breast cancer. Most were postmenopausal and had cancer that was ER+ and had spread to the lymph nodes. Most had previously had chemotherapy.

Dr Chen and her team looked at whether patients taking 300mg of aspirin a day had a lower risk of their cancer coming back than those who took a placebo. There wasn’t. If anything, there might have been a trend towards worse disease-free survival in those who took aspirin, although that wasn’t statistically significant.

The study was originally intended to run for five years, but the clear lack of benefit meant it ended after median follow-up of 20 months.

This study is interesting because it involved a large number of patients and was run by a leading cancer centre. Participants generally took the pills as instructed, which helps to make the findings reliable.

Dr Chen notes that although this study showed that women with high-risk breast cancer didn’t benefit from aspirin, “inflammation may still play a key role in cancer,” and “it’s also important to remember that aspirin may have different effects in other cancers, such as colon, or in different settings, such as primary versus secondary prevention.”

But for now, hold off on the aspirin if you’re only using it to prevent cancer coming back. And if you’re taking it regularly after breast cancer, check in with your doctor as to whether that’s the best thing for you.