The preventive effect of aspirin does not extend to colorectal cancer, which is associated with mutations in the BRAF gene..
These data were obtained in the course of an analysis conducted by employees of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), led by Dr. Andrew Chan..
Two large studies have shown that regular use of aspirin reduces the chance of colorectal cancer, but only when BRAF mutations are not involved (OR 0.73; 95% CI 0.64-0.83).
However, the risk of colorectal cancer with BRAF mutations did not differ significantly between people who used aspirin and people who did not use this drug (OR 1.03; 95% CI 0.76-1.38). For analysis, the US Nurses' Health Study and the US Health Professionals' Health Study were taken, where 3 million person-years of observations were analyzed..
Dr. Chan and his colleagues suggested that “cancer cells with a BRAF mutation may be less sensitive to the antitumor effect of aspirin than other cells.”.
About 40% of the 3 million person-years analyzed were associated with different doses of aspirin used by healthcare workers. In total, 1,226 cases of colorectal cancer were detected during the study, of which 182 were accompanied by BRAF mutations..
Previous studies have shown a low incidence of colorectal cancer among patients taking aspirin regularly (OR 0.77; 95% CI 0.68-0.77), even after adding factors such as age, sex, smoking, family history, diet, alcohol use, mobility to the analysis.
As it turned out, for colorectal cancer with BRAF mutations, aspirin is useless. The study found even a slight increase in risk, namely 0.
7 cases per 100,000 person-years (95% CI 0.3-1.7). Chan and colleagues note that the dose-dependent preventive effect of aspirin is also only true for cancers without a BRAF mutation..
For patients who took 2-5 aspirins per week, there was only a slight trend in the risk reduction of wild-type cancers (OR 0.88; 95% CI 0.72-1.08). For those who took more than 14 aspirins per week, the risk was halved (aOR 0.43; 95% CI 0.25-0.75 at P\u003c0.001).
medbe. en.