Leading the trial will be medical oncologist Dr Rob Zielinski, who has already begun the process of selecting people eligible for the research project.

“We are really proud to think we have put up our hand and been accepted to be part of the Australian and New Zealand arm of the trials,” he said.

Dr Zielinski said participants in the trial would be chosen on the basis that they have had stage one or stage two bowel surgery and undergone followup chemotherapy, and are deemed high risk.

“The trial will run for three years and probably it will be another two years after that we will have the results available to us,” he said.

Dr Zielinski said the acquisition of the research trial was good news for the future of clinical research trials in Orange.

“Research so far shows that 50 to 80 per cent of patients with this type of cancer survive, so there is room for improvement,” he said.

“The people of the central west are eager participants in efforts to find better cancer treatments.”

The trial will split patients into two groups - one to receive a placebo over three years and the other to receive aspirin.

Dr Zielinski said the trial was going ahead as there was already some data gathered that indicated aspirin had a positive effect on outcomes for bowel cancer patients.

“We know aspirin can reduce polyps and we want to see if members of our trial group do better over this three-year period,” he said.

The trial will examine the effect of low doses of aspirin in improving survival of cancer patients and is being conducted in Orange by the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group.

Ten patients have been selected from Orange to take part in the trial.

The remaining 200 will be part of trials taking place in large hospitals across Australia and New Zealand.

janice.harris@fairfaxmedia.com.au