Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

For two specific groups, aspirin reduces the recurrence of colorectal cancer by around 50%.

Group a: 7.7% with aspirin vs 14.1% recurrence without aspirin.

Group b: 7.7% with aspirin vs 16.8% recurrence without aspirin.

What's nice is that these are real occurrences, not relative risk percentages. They don't need fuzzy numbers to make their results significant.

Of course, there's also the line at the bottom: "Severe adverse events occurred in 16.8% of aspirin recipients and 11.6% of placebo recipients." Ouch. So if you can make it past that increase in severe adverse events you'll be fine.

	▲	sudoshred 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How severe? Worse than colon cancer?

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leakycap 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

... "with a certain type of genetic alteration in the tumor."

This genetic alteration is found in slightly more than 1/3 of patients.

I guess "Anti-inflammatory medication for 3 years after colorectal surgery reduces relapse risk for 55% of 38% of patients" doesn't have the same hopeful ring to it, but I'd prefer honesty.

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coldtea 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

For that 38% subset it reduces the risk at 55%, so there's that

(plus 38% is not 0.1%)

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leakycap 2 days ago | parent [-]

No comment other than yours references 38% being at all similar to 0.1%

"So there's that" is not usually slapped on the end of compelling arguments.

Any other reasons to support this style of clickbaity title instead of something intellectually honest that doesn't deflate hope as the reader goes beyond the headline?

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coldtea 2 days ago | parent [-]

>No comment other than yours references 38% being at all similar to 0.1%

Pedantic much? Ever stopped to wonder if there was a point being made, and not a verbatim reference to what a comment said?

The point being 38% is substantial enough for it's 55% to matter. It's not like it just applies to some tiny slice of patients (the proverbial 0.1% - and please don't tell me there's no proverb mentioning 0.1% either).

>Any other reasons to support this style of clickbaity title instead of something intellectually honest that doesn't deflate hope as the reader goes beyond the headline

It does rellapse the risk by 55% (or at least, it would, if the finding replicates and is accurate). It's just that it's the risk for a specific case.

People shouldn't look for hope from headlines to begin with, nor put too much faith on this or that individual announcement. Nor follow something without consulting with a doctor or two.

In this case it's easier for an individual to just try themselves, since it only involves aspirin intake, but in the general case, most such announcements don't go nowhere near of resulting to some new drug, or to being pratictaly applied as part of regular protocols.

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leakycap 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Penantic much?

Pedantic would be pointing out your spelling error. Now you can call me that again but you'll be correct this time.

> In this case it's easier for an individual to just try themselves, since it only involves aspirin intake

The fact this is your takeaway, even after I used numeric values to explain the overpromise of the headline... wow. Your wild takeaway is exactly why clickbaity, overpromising headlines do real damage.

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coldtea 2 days ago | parent [-]

Nope, pedantic is also focusing on taking something literally, when it's an obvious device to make a point.

>The fact this is your takeaway, even after I used numeric values to explain the overpromise of the headline... wow

I covered the overpromise and even explained why it's still a big enough development. This part was making another point that also went wooooosh (about how such findings rarely materialize to treatment, and people shouldn't get their hopes high from headlines to begin with, even IF the finding they write about covers all or most of the cases and not just 55% of 38% of them - and that this is a general rule, even if in this case one can just trivially try the treatment themselves without waiting for a new drug).

I mean, one has to spell it out, and it still IS pedantically misread.

	▲	leakycap 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> why it's still a big enough development. It seems we agree: the hyperbolic, misleading headline wasn't necessary. I appreciate our interaction as a reminder that even numbers do not clearly communicate information to everyone. This will help me to remember I should exercise caution in what I write to make the point abundantly clear. I would never want to put end users in situations where they might harm themselves by taking a pill daily based on a poorly worded headline on a tech website. Good luck to you and your new aspirin regimen, though!

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add-sub-mul-div 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You quoted the first sentence of the article. The headline is not supposed to contain all information from the article. We are not better off with a norm that we refuse to read past the headline and therefore consider the first paragraph of the actual article to be hidden.

	▲	leakycap a day ago \| parent [-]
		I read the article, hence why I immediately noticed the disconnect. Mary Had a Little Lamb doesn't tell the whole story, but it doesn't say Mary's Magic Lamb Does Her Homework, either. I guess intellectual dishonesty in links is so common some people don't even care anymore.