Aspirin ‘could help prevent breast cancer recurrence in overweight patients’

Women who are overweight could be protected against breast cancer recurrence by common anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen.

This is according to a new study from the Cancer Therapy and Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin, which made this discovery after assessing blood samples from cancer patients.

It was found that Anti-inflammatory use reduced the recurrence rate of forms of breast cancer that grow in response to oestrogen exposure by 50 percent, extending patients' disease-free period by more than two years.

The research also shed further light on the fact that the characteristics of breast cancer tend to vary significantly between women who are overweight and those who are not.

Study designer Dr Linda deGraffenried said: "We believe that obese women are facing a different disease. There are changes at the molecular level. We want to reduce the disease-promoting effects of obesity."

Breast cancer is the UK's most common cancer type, with around 48,000 women contracting the disease annually.