Aspirin boosts survival in multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma patients who use aspirin regularly show a survival advantage over their counterparts who do not use said agent, a study has found.

The analysis included 436 patients with multiple myeloma from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses' Health Study. They reported aspirin intake biennially on follow-up questionnaires.

Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models showed that compared with nonusers, patients who used aspirin after cancer diagnosis had 37–39 percent lower risk of multiple myeloma–specific mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 0.61, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.46–0.79) and overall mortality (HR, 0.63, 95 percent CI, 0.49–0.80). These estimates were controlled for age at diagnosis, year of diagnosis, sex, body mass index, prediagnosis aspirin use, and number of comorbidities.

In terms of postdiagnosis aspirin quantity, a modest trend of decrease in both multiple myeloma–specific and all-cause mortality was observed with increasing number of 325-mg tablets of aspirin per week. However, the CIs for 1 to <6 and ≥6 tablets overlapped.

The results did not differ significantly when analysis was stratified before or after the availability of novel therapies (before vs after the year 2000).

On the other hand, frequency or duration of aspirin use prior to cancer diagnosis showed no association with multiple myeloma–specific or overall mortality.

The present data support the use of aspirin as a complementary strategy to enhance multiple myeloma survival. More studies involving patients with comprehensive clinical information are needed to confirm the survival benefit of aspirin in multiple myeloma.