Aspirin and Pancreatic Cancer

By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: November 12, 2003

This is Phoebe Zimmermann with the VOA Special English Health Report.
Researchers who found a possible link between aspirin¹ and the risk of cancer of the 1)pancreas say more studies are needed to confirm the finding. The pancreas is an organ near the stomach that is involved in the 2)digestion² of food.
Study leader Eva Schernhammer teaches at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Doctor Schernhammer says the finding does not mean that women should no longer use 3)aspirin. She says the drug still has important effects. Many people take it to help prevent colorectal cancer, heart attack and stroke.
The finding came from more than eighty-eight-thousand women in a health study of nurses. The study lasted eighteen years. During this time, one-hundred-sixty-one of the nurses developed pancreatic cancer.
Here is what the study found: Women who took fourteen or more aspirin a week had an eighty-six percent greater chance of pancreatic cancer than those who took none. Women who took between six and thirteen pills a week had a forty-one percent higher risk. And women who took one to three aspirin a week had an eleven percent greater chance of pancreatic cancer.
The World Health Organization says seventeen-million people a year die of heart disease. By 4)comparison, two-hundred-sixteen-thousand people develop pancreatic cancer. However, it is one of the most deadly of all cancers. Most patients die within a year.
The researchers reported their findings at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
A separate study found a possible danger for people with heart disease who stop taking aspirin. Researchers from University Hospital Pasteur in Paris reported about that study at a meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
They studied people who entered the hospital after a heart attack or other serious heart problem. All had taken aspirin every day for at least three months to help control heart disease. Aspirin thins the blood and can reduce the chance of a 5)blockage³ in the flow to the heart.
The French researchers studied more than one-thousand-two-hundred patients. They found that fifty-one of them had a serious heart problem less than one week after they stopped the aspirin.
This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. This is Phoebe Zimmermann.

注释:
1) pancreas [5pAnkriEs] n.胰腺
2) digestion [di5dVestFEn] n.消化力
3) aspirin [5AspErin] n.阿斯匹林(解热镇痛药)
4) comparison [kEm5pArisn] n.比较, 对照
5) blockage [5blCkidV] n. 阻塞，堵塞

1 aspirin   

n.阿司匹林

参考例句：

• The aspirin seems to quiet the headache.阿司匹林似乎使头痛减轻了。
• She went into a chemist's and bought some aspirin.她进了一家药店，买了些阿司匹林。

2 digestion   

n.消化，吸收

参考例句：

• This kind of tea acts as an aid to digestion.这种茶可助消化。
• This food is easy of digestion.这食物容易消化。

3 blockage   

n.障碍物；封锁

参考例句：

• The logical treatment is to remove this blockage.合理的治疗方法就是清除堵塞物。
• If the blockage worked,they could retreat with dignity.如果封锁发生作用，他们可以体面地撤退。