Stopping Aspirin Raises Risk for Nonfatal Myocardial Infarction in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease

Daily low-dose aspirin (75–300 mg) prevents adverse cardiovascular (CV) events in patients with established CV disease. However, patients sometimes stop taking aspirin, either for no good reason or because of side effects. In an industry-funded, nested, case-control study, investigators determined risk for myocardial infarction (MI) and death from coronary heart disease (CHD) after discontinuation of low-dose aspirin in patients with histories of adverse CV or cerebrovascular events.

A large U.K. primary care database was used to identify 39,500 patients (age range, 50–84) with first-ever prescriptions for low-dose aspirin for secondary prevention of adverse CV events. During a mean follow-up of 3.2 years, 876 patients experienced nonfatal M…