The old saying an aspirin a day keeps the doctor away seems to apply for certain cancers now. Researchers reported that aspirin and other NSAIDs decrease the risk of progression of the most aggressive form of Barrett's esophagus to esophageal cancer. In a study NSAID users took the drug at least once a week for six or more months any time during follow-up, regardless of daily frequency, duration, or type, the researchers reported. Galipeau and colleagues also found that those with three or more of the biomarkers who used aspirin or other NSAIDs had a 30% risk of esophageal cancer after 10 years, while those with the same biomarkers who did not use NSAIDs had a 79% risk of developing cancer within a decade.

The vast majority of patients in this cohort had gastroesophageal reflux disease and were undergoing therapy, mainly with proton-pump inhibitors. It is unclear how the frequency or severity of symptoms may have affected NSAID use by participants, the researchers said. However, to their knowledge, they said, symptoms from reflux are not associated with intermediate endpoints or cancer in Barrett's esophagus, so it is unlikely that symptoms could explain the association of NSAID use with reduced risk of esophageal cancer. The findings may help identify patients who may benefit most from a very cost-effective, noninvasive therapy in the form of aspirin or NSAIDS.

Bladder cancer is diagnosed in 55,000 - 60,000 individuals annually in the United States. Patients whose cancer has spread to deeper tissues in the bladder and/or nearby lymph nodes may be treated with a radical cystectomy, the surgical removal of the bladder and nearby lymph nodes.

This approach may be able to cure the patient, however recurrences do occur. Researchers want to find out which patients may be more susceptible to a recurrence so that they can either monitor them more closely or treat them more aggressively to reduce the risk of recurrence.

An article was published in Lancet Oncology saying that markers may help predict the risk of cancer recurrences in patients who are treated with a radical cystectomy. Researchers from Texas and Canada conducted a clinical study to evaluate markers found in the the tissue samples taken after surgery. The markers tested included the expression of Bcl-2, caspase-3, P53, and survivin.

The study found that those patients that had an altered expression of Bcl-2, caspase-3, P533 and survivin were associated with over four times the risk of cancer recurrence. Also, the altered expression of all of these bio-markers was associated with nearly seven times the risk of death from cancer.

The researchers conclude that these findings support other studies that show these bio-markers can help predict who will remain cancer free. They look at this as moving forward towards more individualized treatments for the patients.

It did not say in the article whether using this test after the surgery would help them to determine if chemotherapy or radiation would be something that could reduce the risk of recurrence if the markers would show a high risk category of recurrence. I think this these studies are great but we need to be moving forward to get the patients to benefit from this vital information.

Eleven is the magic number.

Eleven pounds of lost weight can reduce the risk of an advanced form of prostate cancer, according to researchers from the American Cancer Society and the Duke University Prostate Center.

Researchers, who tracked the weight of 70,000 men between 1982 and 1992 and then followed them until 2003, found men who lost more than 11 pounds had a lower risk of developing prostate cancer than men whose weight remained the same.

Studies have long shown obese men are at greater risk for prostate cancer. But this study, published in this month's Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, is the first to indicate that recent weight loss can decrease risk by roughly 40 percent.