Aspirin 'helps fight lung cancer'

Aspirin could help cut the risk of the most common type of lung cancer in women by more than half, it is claimed today.

The everyday painkiller is already known to benefit some people with arthritis and heart disease. Now a study published in the British Journal of Cancer reports that women who take aspirin regularly have a significantly reduced rate of a type called non-small cell lung cancer.

Researchers asked more than 14,000 women in New York about their aspirin use. They compared 81 women who subsequently went on to develop lung cancer with 808 who remained healthy.

They found by far the biggest risk factor for lung cancer was a history of smoking. This aside, those who had taken aspirin three or more times a week for at least six months saw their risk of developing any type of lung cancer reduced by a third.

The reduction was even clearer for non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for about three-quarters of cases.

Regular aspirin users were less than half as likely to develop this form of lung