I smoke. But that’s OK because I take aspirin!

Professor Karol Sikora’s highly erudite feature, “Is Aspirin Really a Magic Bullet for Cancer?” in the Daily Telegraph answers most of the questions raised by the aspirin debate.

The former Chief of WHO Cancer gets to the nub by explaining the importance of the new sophisticated diagnostic tests that can evaluate any individual’s risk and how prevention strategies, if anything, are the real ‘magic bullets’.

Yes, Prof Sikora agrees with the evidence for aspirin and he describes how the anti-inflammatory role of not just aspirin, but a wide range of similar drugs can act to help prevent the blocking of natural immune surveillance as well as associated blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) – essential for cancer survival. But, he makes a number of far bigger points, namely:

  1. Prevention is better than cure and up to 140,000 lives could be saved in the UK by effective use of existing knowledge.
  2. Identifying high risk individuals and giving tailored advice / treatments is the future of cancer care.
  3. The commercial approach to producing ‘block buster drugs’ that actually save relatively few lives (in comparison to the effectiveness of prevention) is where all the investment in health currently goes.
  4. It’s important to do sensible things that make you feel better, regardless of the evidence.
  5. Preventative medical strategies need to be patient friendly in order to ‘buy-in’ patient compliance.

As Prof Sikora says: “Individualisation of risk, biomarkers of risk and effective tailored prevention will be the future of cancer care”.

Any drug that suppresses inflammation Full medical glossary
One of the most used medicines. Full medical glossary
A substance that can be measured to help healthcare professionals to assess normal processes, disease processes or a person's response to treatment. Full medical glossary
A fluid that transports oxygen and other substances through the body, made up of blood cells suspended in a liquid. Full medical glossary
Abnormal, uncontrolled cell division resulting in a malignant tumour that may invade surrounding tissues or spread to distant parts of the body. Full medical glossary
The basic unit of genetic material carried on chromosomes. Full medical glossary