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Secondary prevention medications are crucial for patients in whom atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is diagnosed early in life. To determine whether younger ASCVD patients are using medications like aspirin and statins, researchers performed a cross-sectional study using U.S. Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare databases. Patients with extremely premature ASCVD (i.e., a first ischemic heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, or cerebrovascular disease event before the age of 40) or premature ASCVD (i.e., a first ASCVD event before age 55 in men or age 65 in women) were compared with patients who had nonpremature ASCVD.
Among 1.2 million ASCVD patients in the database, 0.6% had extremely premature ASCVD, and 10.9% had premature A…