Aspirin Use and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality in a large United States Cohort - Essay Example

Aspirin Use and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality in a Large United s Cohort – A Summary Your institute’s Aspirin Use and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality in a Large United States Cohort – A Summary Aspirin use has often been associated with the prevention of many types of cancer. This paper attempts to look into the relationship of aspirin use with deaths by pancreatic cancer. Many studies have been conducted in this regard; however, they have not reached a firm conclusion yet. Some point at there being an inverse relationship present, others conclude that there is a direct relationship, while still others show little to no relationship between the two.

This study aims to find out whether there is a link between the use of aspirin and pancreatic cancer mortality or not. Jacobs et al. examined the association between these two through the Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II), a large group of U. S. adults. In the past, aspirin use had been shown to decrease the risk of colon, stomach, and esophageal cancer in the same group. The group consisted of 1,184,588 people in all, with 508,318 males and 676,270 females who came from all U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico (Jacobs et al. 2004, p. 524).

In 1982, the group completed a four page questionnaire that gave data regarding “demographics characteristics and various behavioral, environmental, occupational, and dietary factors” (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 524-525). In 1982, 1984, 1986 and 2000 follow ups were conducted to see if the group members were alive or dead. It was found that 28.1% of them had died and 0.2% could not be traced, whereas 71.7% were alive. A few of the participants had been excluded from the study based on their cancer history, cigarette smoking, or missing data on aspirin use.

Resultantly, 987,590 participants were left, out of which 4577 died from pancreatic cancer (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 525). Statistics were gathered using the information given by the participants in their 1982 questionnaires, and the Cox model of proportional hazards was used to analyze the ratio of deaths caused by pancreatic cancer, and other potential risk factors, for instance cigarette smoking, dietary habits and family history of pancreatic cancer, were adjusted in the findings (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 525).

The frequency of aspirin intake was also taken into account, and it was discovered that most of those who took aspirin regularly, i.e. more than 30 times a month, were older and white, just like the majority of participants, who were mostly middle aged or elderly and white (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 526). The results showed that there was no relationship between aspirin use and pancreatic cancer mortality. The result was similar for both genders, and for various variables like body mass index, diabetes, cigarette smoking etc (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 526).

Moreover, the findings were clear that there was also no relationship between long term aspirin use and pancreatic cancer mortality. The findings were the same for frequency of aspirin use (Jacobs et al., 2004, p. 526). What is interesting is that this study also shows that frequency of aspirin use is inversely related to the risk of death from colon cancer, esophageal cancer, and stomach cancer (Jacobs et al. 2004, p. 528). The researchers have, however, admitted that the limitation to their study was that they did not know the daily dosage of the aspirin users, but only the frequency.

Moreover, there was no information regarding how many aspirin tablets were used each time aspirin was used (Jacobs et al. 2004, p. 527). Moreover, the study did not take into account whether the group participants had altered the frequency of their aspirin use at any time after the follow up. However, the researchers do point out that the analyses taken from the first 6 years of the study alone showed no effect of aspirin on pancreatic cancer mortality either (Jacobs et al. 2004, p. 528). This study is focused on the use of aspirin in relation to pancreatic cancer mortality only, and not the relationship between nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs therewith.

Moreover, it only took into account the deaths caused by pancreatic cancer, and not the occurrence of the cancer. Though, as the researchers point out, pancreatic cancer is usually fatal (Jacobs et al. 2004, p. 528). The study concluded that there was no direct link between aspirin use and pancreatic cancer mortality; the fact that a large group of participants was used for this study also adds to its strength. References Jacobs, E. J., Connell, C. J., Rodriguez, C., Patel, A. V., Calle, E. E., & Thun, M. J. (2004).

Aspirin use and pancreatic cancer mortality in a large United States cohort. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 96(7), 524-528.