Low-dose aspirin does not appear to reduce risk of CV events in patients wit...( Low-dose aspirin as primary preventi...),Health

Low-dose aspirin as primary prevention did not appear to significantly reduce the risk of a combined end point of coronary, cerebrovascular and peripheral vascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a new study in JAMA. However, aspirin did significantly reduce the combination of fatal coronary and fatal cerebrovascular events. The article is being released early online Sunday, November 9 to coincide with its scientific presentation at the American Heart Association meeting. The study will appear in the November 12 print issue of JAMA.

"Diabetes mellitus is a powerful risk factor for cardiovascular events," the authors write. "Individuals with diabetes have a two- to four-fold increased risk of developing cardiovascular events than those without diabetes." The authors note that the "American Diabetes Association recommends use of aspirin as a primary prevention strategy in patients with diabetes who are at increased cardiovascular risk," including those who are older than 40 years or who have additional risk factors, such as family history, hypertension or smoking.

In this study conducted by Hisao Ogawa, M.D., Ph.D., from the Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, Japan and colleagues from the Japanese Primary Prevention of Atherosclerosis with Aspirin for Diabetes (JPAD) Trial Investigators, the researchers examined whether low-dose aspirin would be beneficial for primary prevention of atherosclerotic (atherosclerosis, which involves narrowing or hardening of the arteries because of plaque build-up) events in patients with type 2 diabetes. From Dec. 2002 through April 2008, 2,539 patients with type 2 diabetes and no history of atherosclerotic disease from 163 institutions from throughout Japan were enrolled in the study. Patients were randomly assigned to the low-dose aspirin group receiving 81 or 100 mg per day (n = 1,262) or the nonaspirin (n = 1,277) group. The average age was 65 and 5
'/>"/>