Aspirin protects against pancreatic cancer in people with T2D

For patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), the use of aspirin appears to lower the risk of incident pancreatic cancer, as shown in a retrospective cohort study.

Researchers used a territory-wide healthcare registry and identified newly diagnosed adult patients with T2D in Hong Kong between 2001 and 2015. Those with a history of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic cyst, IgG4 disease, or pancreatectomy were excluded. Patients with pancreatic cancer diagnosed within 1 year of T2D were also excluded.

The primary outcome was pancreatic cancer, while secondary outcomes were pancreatic cancer-related and all-cause mortality. Aspirin use was treated as time-varying variable (≥180 day-use/year) to address immortal-time bias. Multivariable Cox regression model and propensity-score (PS) matching were used in the analyses.

Of the 343,966 newly patients with T2D included, pancreatic cancer occurred in 1,224 (0.36 percent) over a median follow-up of 10.5 years. A total of 51,151 (14.9 percent) deaths from any cause and 787 (0.2 percent) deaths from pancreatic cancer were documented.

Aspirin use was associated with a reduced risk of pancreatic cancer risk in both time-dependent (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.58, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.49–0.69) and PS-matching analyses (aHR, 0.61, 95 percent CI, 0.48–0.77). This protective association was observed with increasing dose and duration of aspirin use (p<0.001 for trend).

Compared with nonusers, aspirin users were also at lower risk of pancreatic cancer-related mortality (aHR, 0.43, 95 percent CI, 0.34–0.53) and all-cause mortality (aHR, 0.78, 95 percent CI, 0.76–0.80).