Does Aspirin affect overall survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer?

Studies have shown that those who take aspirin have a lower risk of cancer and that aspirin has a chemopreventive effect in colorectal cancer.

Following that, a recent research has found that aspirin consumption is connected with a longer overall survival in patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), indicating that aspirin may have an anticancer impact. This study was conducted by Min-Chun Chuang and team and the findings were published in BMC Cancer on 22nd November, 2021.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of aspirin use on the survival of individuals with inoperable NSCLC. Researchers utilized Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database to identify a cohort of 38,842 individuals diagnosed with NSCLC between 2000 and 2012, and used propensity score matching to remove any confounding variables. The matched cohort includes 9864 patients (4932 matched pairs) in total. Aspirin use was investigated to see if there was a link between it and death in patients with inoperable NSCLC. The hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CIs) associated with aspirin exposure were calculated using time-dependent Cox regression models.

The results of this study stated as follow:

1. At the time of their NSCLC diagnosis, 4979 individuals had used aspirin. Aspirin users had a 1.73-year median overall survival (OS) compared to non-aspirin users, who had a 1.30-year median OS.

2. Aspirin consumption was linked with a considerably longer OS in the Cox proportional hazard model with the time-dependent covariate.

3. Even after correcting for sociodemographic factors (age, gender, income, and level of urbanization) and lung cancer therapies by propensity score matching, aspirin users had a considerably longer OS than non-aspirin users.

In conclusion, according to the findings of this study, aspirin consumption is related with a better overall survival in patients with inoperable NSCLC. Despite the necessity for further prospective randomized clinical studies, aspirin may be explored as an adjunctive therapy for patients with inoperable NSCLC.

Reference:

Chuang, MC., Yang, YH., Hsieh, MJ. et al. The association of aspirin use with overall survival of patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer: a retrospective study. BMC Cancer 21, 1257 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-021-08999-8