Aspirin can cut heart death rates: Everyday drug could save 100,000 lives a year, doctors report

ASPIRIN can prevent 7,000 premature deaths a year in Britain and twice that number of non-fatal heart attacks and strokes, a record- breaking study of the potential of one of the most commonly-used drugs has established.

World-wide, it could prevent 100,000 deaths a year in patients who have already had a heart attack, angina, a stroke or surgery for blocked coronary arteries. Leading doctors said yesterday that aspirin should now be considered for almost all patients with such conditions, irrespective of age or sex.

The recommendation follows the biggest collaborative overview for the treatment of any disease, in which results from 300 clinical trials around the world, involving 140,000 patients, were collated by a team of international scientists co- ordinated from the UK.

Although evidence that aspirin, in a dose of about half a tablet a day, can prevent second coronaries and strokes has been accumulating, the new study shows that it can offer benefits to many more patients than previously thought. The doctors who ran the study warned yesterday, however, that patients with no history of vascular disease should not start self-medication.

There is no evidence yet that they would benefit, and they would be at risk of rare side-effects, chiefly bleeding in the stomach or gut. Those who have had a heart attack or stroke should also seek medical advice.

Aspirin works because its anti- platelet activity prevents the clots responsible for heart attacks and strokes. Richard Peto, professor of epidemiology at Oxford, said: 'Most patients who have already had a heart attack or stroke or other disease caused by a blocked artery will eventually die or be disabled by a further blockage. It was known that anti-platelet drugs such as aspirin could sometimes help, but doctors had not realised just how many patients could benefit because the evidence was scattered around the world in different studies.'

The study has established that aspirin works as well for women as for men, for the elderly as well as the middle-aged, and for those with high blood pressure. Equally, it has shown that it protects in many other forms of arterial disease, including bypass surgery. It may also become routine for some types of major surgery such as hip replacement, as the study shows contrary to previous beliefs that it can prevent blood clots forming in the legs.

The study - published in the British Medical Journal - shows aspirin can cut heart attacks and strokes by about a quarter in high- risk patients, reducing non-fatal events by a third and fatal ones by one-sixth. Dr Rory Collins, a co-director of the study, said it had shown that about 2 million people in Britain could potentially benefit from taking half an aspirin a day, at a cost of about pounds 1.50 a year. That could save about pounds 50m a year in the cost of treating heart attacks and strokes in hospital.