LONDON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Small doses of aspirin may reduce cancer death rates by 20 percent to 30 percent, British researchers say.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine say using low-dose aspirin -- about 75mg -- may reduce the occurrence of several cancers -- including esophagus, lung, stomach, pancreas and possibly the brain -- and the benefit -- unrelated to dose, gender or smoking -- increases with age.
"These are very exciting and potentially important findings," researcher Tom Meade says in a statement. "They are likely to alter clinical and public health advice about low-dose aspirin because the balance between benefit and bleeding has probably been altered towards using it."
However, Meade says, this does not mean everyone should automatically take aspirin.
"Health professionals and others will now have to consider the practical implications," he says.
The study, published in The Lancet, was initiated by Peter Rothwell of Oxford University and based on an overview of several randomized trials of aspirin primarily concerned with reducing heart attacks which also gathered information on deaths from cancer.
