Loading...
Recently published negative studies have tempered enthusiasm for using aspirin for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD; NEJM JW Gen Med Jan 1 2019). Now, researchers in New Zealand have attempted to identify subgroups of patients for whom benefits of aspirin might outweigh harms. First, they derived models showing actual observed 5-year rates of CVD and bleeding — according to individualized risk predictors — in a large primary care cohort (age range, 30–79) without aspirin use. Then, they estimated the extent to which aspirin might lower CVD risk and confer bleeding risk in 250,000 patients in their database; these estimates were based on assumptions (taken from a previously published meta-analysis; NEJM JW Gen Med Mar 1 2019…