Aspirin 600 mg Daily Reduced Cancers in Lynch Syndrome

Patients randomized to aspirin for 2 years had about half the risk for colorectal cancer as a placebo group.

New findings on the chemopreventive effects of aspirin are now available from a randomized, controlled study — the first to use cancer as the study endpoint.


To investigate whether aspirin reduces the risk for developing colorectal cancer and other Lynch syndrome–related cancers, researchers randomly assigned 861 study participants with Lynch syndrome to receive 600 mg of aspirin or aspirin placebo daily. At a mean follow-up of 55.7 months, and despite undergoing colonoscopy, 7% of patients on placebo and 4% on aspirin developed primary colorectal cancer. An intent-to-treat analysis showed a nonsignificant trend toward reduced risk for developing colorectal cancer in the aspirin group; however, a per-protocol analysis of participants treated ?2 years showed a reduced risk (hazard ratio, 0.41; P=0.02). Participants taking aspirin for ?2 years also had a borderline reduced risk for noncolorectal Lynch syndrome cancers (HR, 0.47; P=0.07).


Citation(s):

Burn J et al. Long-term effect of aspirin on cancer risk in carriers of hereditary colorectal cancer: An analysis from the CAPP2 randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2011 Oct 28; [e-pub ahead of print].