Aspirin may double the chances of survival for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, according to the results of a new study recently presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria.

Share on Pinterest New research suggests aspirin could double the survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancers.

This research, led by Dr. Martine Frouws of Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, adds to growing evidence suggesting aspirin may be useful in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Last month, Medical News Today reported on a study suggesting aspirin may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, while a more recent study claims aspirin may help boost treatment response in patients with breast, skin and bowel cancers.

For their study, Dr. Frouws and colleagues set out to determine how aspirin impacts the survival of patients with tumors in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract – namely the rectum, colon and esophagus. This is the first time a study has simultaneously assessed survival data by different GI locations, according to the authors.

The study included 13,715 patients who received a GI cancer diagnosis between 1998 and 2011. They were followed up for a median of 48.6 months. Of these patients, 42.8% had colon cancer, 25.4% had rectal cancer and 10.2% had cancer of the esophagus.

To determine how aspirin use after a GI cancer diagnosis impacted the overall survival of these patients, the researchers linked patient data with drug dispensing information from the PHARMO Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

“In this study we analyzed each separate prescription per patient, and therefore we were able to achieve a more exact estimate of the effect of aspirin on cancer survival,” notes Dr. Frouws.