United Kingdom launches largest trial to assess whether aspirin can fight cancer

The world’s largest clinical trial to examine whether aspirin can prevent cancers returning has begun in the United Kingdom. The Add-Aspirin Phase 3 trial was launched in the United Kingdom Thursday. They also will look at the drug’s mechanism of action, News-Medical.net reported.

The plan is to gather 11,000 patients who have already been treated for bowel, esophageal, stomach, breast, or prostate cancer, to see if aspirin has any effect on the recurrence of their cancer. According to Cancer Research United Kingdom, the trial will run for 12 years and will be conducted at more than 100 centres across the UK.

The trial will compare two groups of patients taking different aspirin doses and a further group taking placebo.

Previous studies have already proved that aspirin can prevent heart attacks and strokes in some people, and a few studies have also suggested that it can prevent some types of cancers.

However, Langley warned people against taking aspirin by themselves unless they are participating in the trial.

Taking the drug every day comes with a serious health warning as it can cause side effects such as ulcers and bleeding from the stomach, or even the brain.

“If we find that aspirin does stop these cancers returning, it could change future treatment – providing a cheap and simple way to help stop cancer coming back and helping more people survive”.

Alex King, 51, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2009 and has been given the all-clear, said: “Having cancer was one of the toughest experiences of my life”.

For past so many years, a lot of debates have been going on with regard to anti-cancer qualities of aspirin.

Up to 9,000 patients will be recruited in the United Kingdom while another 2,000 will take part in India where the trial is expected to open in 2016, a Cancer Research United Kingdom spokeswoman said.

Dr Fiona Reddington, Cancer Research UK’s head of population research, said the trial was “potentially game-changing” for patients. Participants will self-administer tablets over the five-year period and will be actively followed for the next five years and the trial will be overseen in the United Kingdom by Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University College London (UCL). “The NIHR HTA programme prides itself on funding pragmatic clinical trials like this that can lead to tangible benefits to patients and could help fill important knowledge gaps for the NHS”.