Aspirin could block bowel cancers

British scientists found people who are predisposed to bowel cancer could reduce their risk of the disease by nearly two-thirds simply by taking two regular aspirin tablets a day for at least two years.

Their risk of getting some other cancers, particularly womb cancer, halved.

Professor Sir John Burn from the University of Newcastle, who led the research, said the findings were "impressive".

"What we have shown is that aspirin has a major preventative effect on cancer," he said.

The researchers studied patients with Lynch Syndrome, an inherited genetic condition that makes them 10 times more likely to develop bowel cancer than the general population.

Results published in The Lancet medical journal show those taking 600mg of aspirin a day for more than two years were 63% less likely than those taking dummy pills to have developed bowel cancer five years later.

Prof Burn said if all 30,000 people in the UK with Lynch syndrome took aspirin for 30 years, around 10,000 bowel cancers would be prevented.

Some doctors are hesitant about recommending aspirin because of the risk of severe bleeding in the stomach or brain.

But Prof Burn said: "If we can prevent 10,000 cancers in return for 1,000 ulcers and 100 strokes, in most people's minds that's a good deal, especially if you have grown up in a family with three, four, five, six people who have had cancer."

He cautioned that the balance between risk and benefit in taking aspirin was more finely balanced in the general population.

Anyone considering long-term treatment with aspirin should talk to their doctor first, he said.

The team will now conduct further research to see whether lower doses of aspirin also reduce cancer risk but with fewer side effects.