Day 017 - 25 Jul 94 - Page 54
1 than that?
A. I think one cannot go further than that. In the
2 United States low dose asprin is a very popular therapy,
mainly from the point of view of preventing coronary
3 artery disease, because there is a very good correlation
between reduction in risk of coronary artery disease and
4 taking of low doses of asprin. I suspect that in this
survey, which looked at a whole population of people,
5 there were a significant number taking asprin not from the
point of view of large bowel cancer, but probably almost
6 certainly from the point of view of coronary artery
disease prevention. This has been thrown up by this
7 particular study, but exactly what the mechanism is
I would not know.
8
Q. Could one propose an independent role for asprin in the
9 sense it might be protective in even in the absence of
high fibre intake?
10 A. It might be.
11 Q. Or might it be hat the combination of the two is
necessary?
12 A. Again it might be. I would not like to say any more
than that to be honest.
13
Q. Then finally on this topic can we turn to a paper this
14 time which is led by Dr. Wynder at tab 21, again from 1992
I believe. It comes from something called Cancer
15 Supplement of September 1992. This I take it is also an
American publication?
16 A. It is. This was originally presented at a conference
and has then subsequently been written up for publication.
17
Q. Much of the material we have looked at before is contained
18 in this paper, so I am not going to go through the whole
of it. It is headed: Environmental Dietary Factors of
19 Colorectal Cancer - Some Unresolved Issues" this is
September 1992. "Background: Unresolved epidemiologic
20 issues in large bowel cancer include reasons for changes
in incidence rates, differences in epidemiology of cancer
21 in the distil and proximal colon." What are the distil
and proximal colon?
22 A. What they are meaning there is the right side or
ascending colon and the descending colon.
23
Q. Proximal is the one nearest to the right?
24 A. No. Proximal is nearest to the small bowel. Distil
nearest to the rectum.
25
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Nearest to the middle of the body, is it?
26 A. No. When I talked this morning about the small bowel
emptying into the large bowel, that is what they call the
27 proximal colon. It is the first part of the ascending
colon. The distil colon is really the last bit of the
28 descending colon before it becomes the rectum.
29 MR. RAMPTON: Proximal indicates proximity to the small colon?
A. Yes. It is not a term that I would -----
30
Q. It is not British medical-ease?
