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A STUDY by a Hong
Kong University research team has found that long-term use of
aspirin may reduce the risk of stomach cancer.
A team from the University
of Hong Kong's Faculty of Medicine reviewed data from 2,831
stomach cancer patients and found that long-term use of
aspirin or steroid-free anti-inflammatory drugs could reduce
the risk of stomach cancer, or gastric cancer, by 22 percent.
The results were published
in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Wednesday but
researcher, Dr Benjamin Wong, said it was too early to
forecast whether aspirin could be used to treat cancer. "The
results we have at this stage is for prevention only and we do
not want to cause confusion that this could also be for
treatment purposes," said Wong.
Dr Wong added this was
merely a "first step" to prove the principle that aspirin
could reduce the risk of cancer and stressed more tests needed
to be done, including a clinical trial, to prove the results
were accurate.
Globally, stomach cancer is
the fourth most common cancer with an estimated 876,300 new
sufferers recorded in 2000. It is also the second leading
cause of cancer deaths, according to World Health Organisation.
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