Aspirin after Bypass Surgery Reduces Death Risk

A study has shown that administering aspirin to patients within 48 hours after heart bypass surgery greatly reduces the risk of death and ischemic complications. The study was published in the October 24, 2002, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The research involved more than 5,000 patients having bypass surgery in 70 hospitals in 17 countries from 1996 to 2000. The hospital death rate among those not given aspirin was 4%, while the death rate for those given aspirin was only 1.3%. The researchers found similar reductions in the rates of stroke, heart attack, bowel damage, and kidney failure caused by low blood flow.

Doctors say the results provides good evidence that aspirin should be given to bypass patients shortly after surgery, except for those who are allergic to aspirin or have bleeding disorders. Some doctors had feared that administering aspirin to bypass patients too soon after their surgery could cause severe bleeding, but the study did not show this. The benefit of aspirin was thought to be twofold: to prevent the formation of blood clots and to reduce the inflammation in blood vessels.

The study was not a randomized controlled trial. However, lead author Dr. Dennis T.Mangano said his team had carefully compared the records of the patients and had found no underlying differences that would explain why those who got aspirin did so much better. Dr. Mangano is the founder of the Ischemia Research and Education Foundation (San Francisco, CA, USA), which sponsored the trial.





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