Aspirin and other NSAIDs lower PSA levels

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have found that men who regularly take aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drugs have lower prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels than men who do not regularly use NSAIDs.

After taking into account age, race, family history of prostate cancer, obesity, and other factors that affect the size of the prostate gland, prostate cancer risk, and PSA levels, study results showed that PSA levels were 9% lower in men who regularly took aspirin (the most commonly used NSAID) compared with men who did not take the drug. Aspirin had an even greater effect on PSA levels in men who were later found to have prostate cancer.

Further investigations led the researchers to discover that prostate volume was the same in aspirin-users as it was in non-users, thus suggesting that aspirin is not lowering PSA levels by reducing the volume of the prostate gland. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that aspirin may have a “beneficial effect on cancer development.”

Study leader Jay H. Fowke, Ph.D., said of the findings: “Several prior studies reported anti-inflammatory drugs like NSAIDs were associated with lower prostate cancer risk. Our data also suggest that NSAID use has a beneficial effect on prostate cancer. These findings could be consistent with a protective effect, because aspirin reduced PSA levels more among those men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer than among men with other prostate diseases.” However, he also warns that there is the possibility that NSAID use could be problematic in terms of diagnosing prostate cancer: “This analysis raises the concern that aspirin and other NSAIDs may lower PSA levels below the level of clinical suspicion without having any effect on prostate cancer development, and if that is true, use of these agents could be hampering our ability to detect early-stage prostate cancer through PSA screening,”

News release: Men Who Take Aspirin Have Significantly Lower PSA Levels. American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) November 11th 2008.