WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- An aspirin a day could keep colon cancer away -- at least it might if you're one of the lucky individuals to have a specific genetic variation.

    "There is evidence that aspirin and related anti-inflammatory drugs can reduce the risk of colorectal adenomas (growths) and cancer," said Elizabeth Barry, a professor of community and family medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. The report is in the new Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

    Barry said the research may eventually lead to new cancer-prevention drugs.

    "We looked closer at the impact of aspirin in people who have a higher risk of developing colorectal adenomas, which lead to cancer, by examining their ODC genotype," she said in a statement.

    "So now we know that aspirin appears to work better in people who have this slight genetic variation, and this finding could potentially be clinically useful in the future by allowing physicians to predict which individuals are likely to benefit fromaspirin use for colorectal cancer chemoprevention.

    "For more than three years, Barry and eight other researchers studied 973 subjects as part of the Aspirin/Folate Polyp Prevention Study. All participants had a history of at least one adenoma in the three months before the start of the study. The subjects were randomly given placebo or aspirin.

    The ODC genotype, also known as the ornithine decarboxylase gene, is divided into three subgroups based on whether the gene ishomozygous wild-type (GG), homozygous variant (AA) or heterozygous(AG). More than half the subjects had either one or two copies of the ODC genetic variation, meaning they had one or two A alleles.

    The study's findings show that aspirin had no effect on people with the GG gene, which was roughly half of the population.

    In the others, who had AA or AG alleles, aspirin reduced the occurrence of new adenomas by 23 percent and advanced adenomas by 49 percent.

    "(The study) opens up a number of other questions that will lead to further work before any new treatment is implemented in general clinical practice," said Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society. "But it is interesting work."

    Brooks noted that the study is limited because it looks strictly at individuals who already had a growth removed, and so it does not give any answers about the general population.

    Brooks also said that more work should be done to look at whether other chemopreventative drugs, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like COX-2 inhibitors, would have the same effects as aspirin.

    Barry said she plans to continue research. "We would like to confirm this result in other populations," she said.