Aspirin May Help Delay and Reduce the Development of Mesothelioma 

We’ve all heard of taking aspirin if you have a headache, or a fever, or perhaps even to lower your risk of a heart attack or stroke. Now, with the results of new research published in the journal Cell Death and Disease, you might now take aspirin if you’ve been exposed to asbestos.

Recent studies have shown that taking daily aspirin reduces the incidence of colon cancer and of other inflammatory related malignancies, so researchers at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu theorized that aspirin could inhibit the inflammatory response that occurs with asbestos exposure. When the human body tries and fails to eliminate asbestos fibers that have been inhaled or ingested, the inflammatory molecule, High-Mobility Group Box 1 (HMGB1) is released thus beginning a process which is believed to ultimately lead to the development of a malignancy, i.e., mesothelioma.

“We tested several anti-inflammatory agents to see if we were able to reduce HMGB1-induced mesothelioma cell growth, and none of them worked, except for aspirin,” researcher Dr. Haining Yang, said in an interview with MedicalResearch.com. The tests were performed on human mesothelioma cells in mice. Dr. Yang and her team are planning a clinical trial to see if aspirin reduces serum levels of HMGB1 in asbestos exposed individuals. If successful, a longer term trial on asbestos exposed individuals will take place to see if a daily aspirin regimen reduces incidence of mesothelioma.

Read the abstract here.