Background:

Aspirin (Acetylsalicylic acid) is a potent and selective inhibitor of cyclooxygenase (COX) with a broad range of pharmacological activities including anti-inflammation and pain relief. Multiple studies have accumulated sufficient evidence to establish the association between the use of aspirin and a reduced risk of cancers including prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer. Aspirin suppresses ovarian cancer cells harboring COX-1 by acting as histone deacetylase inhibitors to up-regulate cell cycle arrest protein p21. Aspirin also inhibits the expression of COX-2 in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes resulting in reduced PG production and the down-regulation of ERK and NF-_KB respectively.

Reference

[1].Cho M, Kabir SM, Dong Y, Lee E, Rice VM, Khabele D, Son DS. Aspirin Blocks EGF-stimulated Cell Viability in a COX-1 Dependent Manner in Ovarian Cancer Cells. J Cancer. 2013;4(8):671-678.
[2].Duan Y, Chen F, Zhang A, Zhu B, Sun J, Xie Q, Chen Z. Aspirin inhibits lipopolysaccharide-induced COX-2 expression and PGE2 production in porcine alveolar macrophages by modulating protein kinase C and protein tyrosine phosphatase activity. BMB Rep. 2013. pii: 2320. [Epub ahead of print]