{"id":89623,"date":"2025-09-27T21:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T21:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89623\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T21:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T21:45:22","slug":"this-0-05-pill-could-revolutionize-colon-cancer-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89623\/","title":{"rendered":"This $0.05 Pill Could Revolutionize Colon Cancer Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Pouring<\/a>A major clinical trial led by Swedish researchers has revealed that a common, inexpensive drug could play a powerful new role in the fight against colon and rectal cancer. Credit: Stock<\/p>\n

Low-dose aspirin significantly reduced colorectal cancer recurrence in genetically defined patients.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A team of researchers led by Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital has demonstrated in a new randomized clinical trial that taking a low daily dose of aspirin can cut in half the likelihood of recurrence after surgery in patients with colon or rectal cancer whose tumors carry a specific genetic alteration.<\/p>\n

Globally, nearly two million people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer each year. Of these, between 20 and 40 percent go on to develop metastases, making treatment significantly more challenging and often reducing survival rates.<\/p>\n

From observation to clinical trial<\/p>\n

Earlier observational research had suggested that aspirin might lower the risk of certain cancers and perhaps reduce recurrence after surgery in colorectal cancer patients with mutations in the PIK3 signaling pathway.<\/p>\n

This pathway controls critical cellular functions such as growth and division. Mutations disrupt these processes, driving unchecked cell growth and cancer progression. However, results from previous studies were inconsistent, and no randomized clinical trials had confirmed the link. To resolve this uncertainty, researchers launched the ALASCCA trial, which has now been reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.<\/p>\n

The ALASCCA trial design and results<\/p>\n

The study enrolled over 3,500 patients with colon or rectal cancer at 33 hospitals across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Among them, those whose tumors carried a PIK3 pathway mutation\u2014present in about 40 percent of cases\u2014were randomly assigned to receive either 160 mg of aspirin per day or a placebo for three years following surgery.<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/a>Anna Martling. Credit: Liza Simonsson<\/p>\n

For patients with the genetic mutation in PIK3, the risk of recurrence was reduced by 55 percent in those who received aspirin compared with the placebo group.<\/p>\n

Why aspirin may work against cancer<\/p>\n

\u201cAspirin is being tested here in a completely new context as a precision medicine treatment. This is a clear example of how we can use genetic information to personalize treatment and at the same time save both resources and suffering,\u201d says first author Anna Martling, professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, and senior consultant surgeon at Karolinska University Hospital.<\/p>\n

So, how does aspirin reduce the risk of recurrence of colon and rectal cancer? The researchers believe that the effect is likely due to aspirin acting through several parallel mechanisms \u2013 it reduces inflammation, inhibits platelet function, and tumor growth. This combination makes the environment less favorable for cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we do not yet fully understand all the molecular links, the findings strongly support the biological rationale and suggest that the treatment may be particularly effective in genetically defined subgroups of patients,\u201d says Anna Martling.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe that the results could have global significance and influence treatment guidelines for colon and rectal cancer worldwide. Anna Martling sees the fact that the drug is well established as a major advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAspirin is a drug that is readily available globally and extremely inexpensive compared to many modern cancer drugs, which is very positive,\u201d says Anna Martling.<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cLow-Dose Aspirin for PI3K-Altered Localized Colorectal Cancer\u201d by Anna Martling, Ida Hed Myrberg, Mef Nilbert, Henrik Gr\u00f6nberg, Fredrik Granath, Martin Eklund, Tom \u00d6resland, Lene H. Iversen, Carola Haapam\u00e4ki, Martin Janson, Karin Westberg, Josefin Segelman, Urban Ersson, Mattias Prytz, Eva Angenete, Rebecka Bergstr\u00f6m, Markus Mayrhofer, Bengt Glimelius and Johan Lindberg, 17 September 2025, New England Journal of Medicine.
DOI: 10.1056\/NEJMoa2504650<\/a><\/p>\n

The study was funded in part by the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Cancer Society. The researchers state that there are no conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major clinical trial led by Swedish researchers has revealed that a common, inexpensive drug could play a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[110,11621,18,135,19,17,58507,111,5536],"class_list":{"0":"post-89623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-colon","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-karolinska-institutet","15":"tag-oncology","16":"tag-pharmacology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}