Multicenter retrospective study of aspirin for prevention of recurrence after curative resection for stage I-III colorectal cancer

Benefit of aspirin in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) following curative resection is not clear. A multicenter retrospective study in Japan evaluated use of aspirin in 2,863 patients with stage I-III CRC who underwent curative resection between January 2017 and December 2019. Patients were classified into two groups according to aspirin use. The aspirin group was older, and fewer patients had advanced pathological tumor stages or received postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy than the non-aspirin group. After propensity score matching to minimize bias between groups, aspirin use was associated with improved overall survival (HR 0.306; 95% CI 0.14-0.68) and recurrence-free survival (0.350; 0.19-0.62). Aspirin use significantly improved recurrence-free survival in patients with advanced cancer who were recommended to receive postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. The authors conclude that these results suggest that aspirin use is associated with improved postoperative prognosis after curative resection of stage I-III CRC.