Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs reduce the risk of skin cancer. Danish researchers compared the painkiller history of more than 18,000 people with skin cancer to that of nearly 180,000 people without the disease. They found that people who had filled at least two prescriptions for aspirin, celecoxib, ibuprofen or naproxen between 1991 and 2002 were less likely to develop either squamous cell carcinoma or the most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma.
Those who took the most of such NSAID pain relievers got the biggest response: a 46 percent lower likelihood of developing melanoma and a 35 percent lower chance of squamous cell carcinoma. This expands the repertoire of cancers that aspirin can help prevent. In addition to skin cancer, people who take aspirin are less likely to develop colorectal, lung, brain, esophageal, kidney, bladder, breast and prostate tumors. NSAIDs do pose a risk and no one should undertake long-term treatment with such drugs without medical supervision.
[Cancer, online, May 29, 2012]
