Boost for aspirin cancer research

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6939012.stm

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Scientists studying how aspirin can be used to help fight bowel cancer have been given a £160,000 funding boost.

A team of researchers at Edinburgh University was awarded the grant by the charity Cancer Research UK to help with its work.

They recently discovered that aspirin and similar non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) caused bowel cancer cells to self destruct.

More than 1,500 people in Scotland die from bowel cancer every year.

The research team, led by Dr Lesley Stark, hopes to develop new drugs which mimic the effect aspirin has on cancer cells because taking NSAIDs long-term can have side effects, making them unsuitable for use for cancer prevention.

Dr Stark said: "The ultimate aim of the study is to identify means other than NSAIDs that prevent bowel cancer in a similar way to aspirin."

She explained her team hoped to understand in more detail how aspirin and NSAIDs caused the bowel cancer cells to self destruct.

"Understanding how NSAIDs act against bowel cancer gives us the chance to identify other drugs that have a similar preventative effect," Dr Stark said.

There are 36,000 people diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in Britain and 16,000 deaths from the disease, making it the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK.