- Researchers say people who had a previous cardiovascular event should take a baby aspirin every day after discussing it with their doctor.
- They say the small risk from taking baby aspirin is outweighed by the benefits it provides in such cases.
- Daily aspirin is no longer recommended for people who have not had a previous cardiovascular event.
People who have had a heart attack and do not take a daily aspirin have an elevated likelihood of recurring heart attack, stroke, or death compared to those who consistently take aspirin after the event.
That’s according to research presented today at the ESC Congress 2023. The findings have not been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal.
The new study from Denmark examined the risk associated with discontinuing long-term aspirin compared to continued use after a heart attack.
The researchers looked at data from the Danish nationwide health registry, which included 40,114 people, aged 40 and over, who had a first heart attack between 2004 and 2017.
The participants were treated with a coronary stent and took aspirin during the first year after their heart attack. The researchers excluded people on anticoagulants and those who had a stroke or second heart attack within the first year.
In Denmark, when people pick up an aspirin prescription, the number of tablets and the date they picked it up are recorded in registries, providing robust data for the study.
The researchers evaluated aspirin use for the study participants at two, four, six, and eight years after the heart attack.
Aspirin compliance declined at each checkpoint:
- Two years after the event, 90% continued to use aspirin
- At four years, 84% were in compliance
- At six years, 82% still used aspirin
- At eight years, compliance was at 81%
In the study, researchers reported that people who took aspirin as prescribed were less likely to experience another event than non-adherence for all four time points.
- At the two-year follow-up, those who had stopped taking aspirin had an 29% higher…
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