Colorectal cancer deaths in older women who take anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen may be cut by 30 percent, according to study results released this week.
"Our results suggest that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use is associated with lower colorectal cancer mortality among postmenopausal women who use these medications more consistently and for longer periods of time," Anna Coghill, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said in a news release.
Coghill's research team examined aspirin and non-aspirin NSAID use among more than 160,000 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative. They found 2,119 cases of colorectal cancer and 492 deaths due to the cancer. Women who used NSAIDs at the beginning of the study and three years later were shown to have a 30 percent lower rate of death from colorectal cancer than women who either didn't take them or took them at only one of these two points.
"The results of our study help to further clarify the importance of different durations of NSAID use over time for the risk for dying from colorectal cancer," Coghill said in a statement. However, she said the study did not prove a cause-and-effect between NSAID use and the risk of colorectal cancer, and are still preliminary.
The study will be presented Sunday at the AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Boston.
