Simple aspirin helps latest drugs to defeat cancers, research says

The new research could end the decades of relliance on chemotherapy

A SIMPLE dose of aspirin could prove a life-saver for cancer sufferers as part of a radical new treatment.

 

Research shows the over-the-counter pill boosts the effectiveness of new anticancer drugs.

British scientists think that when aspirin is taken alongside immunotherapy drugs it stops cancer cells from “hiding” – allowing the immune system to find and destroy tumours.

It could signal the end of decades of reliance on chemotherapy. In the study a combination of aspirin and “checkpoint inhibitor” drugs slowed the development of bowel and skin cancer in mice compared with immunotherapy alone.

Skin, breast and bowel cancer cells often produce large amounts of PGE2, a substance that weakens the immune system’s normal response to attack faulty cells, helping tumours to grow.

But aspirin blocks the substance from forming.

Professor Caetano Reis e Sousa of the Francis Crick Institute in London said: “Giving patients inhibitors like aspirin at the same time as immunotherapy could potentially make a huge difference.

“It’s still early work but this could help make cancer immunotherapy even more effective – delivering life-changing results for patients.”

Giving patients inhibitors like aspirin at the same time as immunotherapy could potentially make a huge difference

Professor Caetano Reis e Sousa of the Francis Crick Institute

 

The research, funded by Cancer Research UK, is published in the journal Cell.

Justin Stebbing, consultant oncologist at Imperial College, said: “It is good aspirin has been combined with other drugs in scientific experiments but we now need to validate it in humans.

“Immunotherapy is going to be a very important treatment for cancer going forward – but it’s going to be in combination with other things.”

Millions take a daily aspirin to stave off heart attacks and strokes.

Research has shown some who take it are less likely to develop bowel, breast and other types of cancer.

Costing as little as 2p per dose, it works by blocking the effects of proteins involved in inflammation.

Professor Peter Johnson, of Cancer Research UK, said: “PGE2 acts on many different cells in our body and this study suggests one of these actions is to tell our immune system to ignore cancer cells.

“Once you stop the cancer cells from producing it the immune system switches back to ‘kill mode’ and attacks the tumour.

“It’s an exciting finding that could offer a simple way to dramatically improve the response to treatment.”