Taking Aspirin May Improve Immune Surveillance Against Colorectal Cancer

(CTN News) – A study published online in Cancer on April 22 suggests that aspirin may promote an immune response against cancer, with fewer nodal metastases and a higher infiltration of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes during treatment among aspirin users with colorectal cancer (CRC).

Ottavia De Simoni, MD, from the Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV‐IRCCS in Padova, Italy, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 238 patients.

It is anticipated that a study undertaken by the METACCRE cohort of patients with a diagnosis of CRC with a history of surgery between 2015 and 2019 will evaluate the impact on the tumor microenvironment, systemic immunity, and healthy mucosa surrounding a tumor.

An investigation was conducted to investigate how immune surveillance-related genes, such as PD-L1, CD80, CD86, HLA I, and HLA II, are expressed in primary CRC cells treated; this experiment was repeated in cell lines, along with treatment with aspirin, to check whether these genes are induced.

A subgroup of patients underwent immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry examinations in order to determine the mucosal immune microenvironment.

According to the results of the METACCRE study, 12 percent of the patients used aspirin during the study period.

Researchers at the University of California found that users were significantly less likely to develop nodal metastases and had a significant increase in tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte infiltration.

During the treatment with aspirin, there was an increase in the expression of CD80 mRNA in both the CRC primary cells as well as selected cell lines.

It was found that the ratio of CD8/CD3 cells and the number of epithelial cells that expressed CD80 were higher in the healthy mucosa surrounding rectal cancer when people took aspirin.”

There is some evidence to suggest that aspirin use is associated with a lower grading and nodal metastatic rate in patients with CRC as well as a higher infiltration of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes,” the authors write.

These results are more evident in the right colon where, realistically, aspirin has a higher bioavailability.”

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