Why a daily aspirin could have saved Bee Gee Robin: Breakthrough for families living with 'death sentence' bowel cancer gene

Tributes are still pouring in for Robin Gibb, one of the world’s finest singer/songwriters, who died last month aged 62.
Sadly, it was of a disease that is preventable and curable – bowel cancer.

Even sadder is the fact that he had a family history of bowel cancer.
All the success – the hit records, the millions the Bee Gees earned – couldn’t save him.
But I believe he could, and should, be alive today if we tried harder to find and to protect families such as his.

I’ve been on the steering committee of a worldwide genetic trial for bowel cancer and it’s had an amazing breakthrough. Trial results suggest that a daily aspirin could stop two-thirds of many family cancers in their tracks.
Yet most affected families don’t know they can be tested for rogue genes, aren’t aware they should be offered regular surveillance and don’t know how to take avoiding action. Families such as the Gibbs.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2153701/Why-daily-aspirin-saved-Bee-Gee-Robin-Breakthrough-families-living-death-sentence-bowel-cancer-gene.html#ixzz1zdv8cax2