Aspirin . . . and other stories

Adverse effects of aspirinA couple of weeks ago, Minerva mentioned a large trial of low dose aspirin in asymptomatic older people. It turned out that aspirin had no benefit where the primary outcome—disability-free survival—was concerned. Worse, it carried a small increase in the risk of intracranial bleeding. During the five years of the trial, more than a third of participants in the aspirin group stopped taking their allocated treatment. A re-analysis of trial data, adjusting for compliance, still finds no benefit from aspirin on survival but discovers that for haemorrhage, cancer mortality, and all-cause mortality, the risks are greater than estimated by the intention-to-treat analysis (Am J Epidemiol doi:10.1093/aje/kwad168).Stroke after a transient ischaemic attackA registry study from Denmark compared outcomes in 20 000 people with first time transient ischaemic attacks with those of two control groups: age and sex matched people in the background population and people with a first…
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