The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7244 p502
12 April 2003

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American Association for Cancer Research (www.aacr.org)

Regular use of aspirin and ibuprofen protects against breast cancer

Regular use of ibuprofen and aspirin protects women against breast cancer, say researchers from Ohio State University.

They used data from the Women's Health Initiative, which enrolled 80,741 postmenopausal women aged between 50 and 79 years with no reported history of any cancer. Of those enrolled, 1,392 were later diagnosed with breast cancer.

The researchers estimate that women taking two or more non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs per week for five to nine years reduced their risk of breast cancer by 21 per cent. Use for 10 or more years was associated with a risk reduction of 28 per cent.

The researchers adjusted the estimated probability of developing breast cancer for age and other breast cancer risk factors (eg, body mass, oestrogen use, family history and exercise) and found that the risk remained stable. Ibuprofen was more effective than aspirin in preventing breast cancer (49 per cent vs 21 per cent) and that regular use of low-dose aspirin (<100mg) had no effect.

The data are published in the Proceedings of the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (www.aacr.org).