Daily Aspirin Could Benefit Some Without CVD

Taking daily aspirin could be beneficial to some high-risk individuals without cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to the results of a recent study.

In order to examine whether the benefits of aspirin for primary prevention of CVD outweigh bleeding risk, researchers conducted an individualized benefit-harm analysis based on sex-specific risk scores using data from 245,028 individuals aged 30 to 79 who were without CVD at baseline.

They conducted the net benefit of aspirin therapy by subtracting the number of CVD events likely to be prevented from the number of major bleeds likely to be caused over 5 years.

Overall, when researchers assumed that 1 CVD event was equal in severity to 1 major bleed, 2.5% of women and 12.1% of men were likely to have a net benefit. This increased to 21.4% of women and 40.7% of men if 1 CVD event was equal to 2 major bleeding events. Those with a net benefit had higher baseline CVD, higher baseline CVD risk factors, and lower levels of bleeding risk factors.

“For some persons without CVD, aspirin is likely to result in net benefit,” they concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Selak V, Jackson R, Poppe K, et al. Personalized prediction of cardiovascular benefits and bleeding harms from aspirin for primary prevention: a benefit–harm analysis [published online September 17, 2019]. Ann Intern Med. DOI: 10.7326/M19-1132