These outcomes spotlight how essential it’s to solely take aspirin in your physician’s orders and to carry off beginning any over-the-counter medicines like aspirin till you will have mentioned whether or not the anticipated profit outweighs the danger.
In line with latest analysis, stopping using aspirin whereas taking a blood thinner reduces the danger of bleeding.
Latest analysis signifies that you just won’t must take a second blood thinner when you already take one.
The truth is, a Michigan Medicine examine reveals that sufferers’ threat of bleeding problems considerably decreases once they cease taking aspirin whereas utilizing a generally prescribed blood thinner.
Over 6,700 sufferers who had been being handled for blood clots (venous thromboembolism) and atrial fibrillation (irregular coronary heart rhythm that may result in stroke) at anticoagulation clinics in Michigan had been studied by researchers. Regardless of not having a historical past of coronary heart illness, sufferers got aspirin along with the frequent blood thinner warfarin as a part of their remedy.
“We all know that aspirin just isn’t a panacea drug because it was as soon as regarded as and might in truth result in extra bleeding occasions in a few of these sufferers, so we labored with the clinics to scale back aspirin use amongst sufferers for whom it won’t be vital,” stated Geoffrey Barnes, M.D., senior creator of the examine and a heart specialist on the College of Michigan Well being Frankel Cardiovascular Heart.
Aspirin use amongst sufferers fell by 46.6% throughout the examine intervention. The chance of a bleeding complication decreased by 32.3% when aspirin was used much less incessantly, which equates to 1 main bleeding occasion being averted for each 1,000 sufferers who cease taking aspirin. The examine was not too long ago printed within the journal JAMA Community Open.
“After we began this examine, there was already an effort by medical doctors to scale back aspirin use, and our findings present that accelerating that discount prevents severe bleeding problems which, in flip, will be lifesaving for sufferers,” stated Barnes, who can also be an affiliate professor of inner drugs at U-M Medical Faculty. “It’s actually vital for physicians and well being techniques to be extra cognizant about when sufferers on a blood thinner ought to and shouldn’t be utilizing aspirin.”
This de-escalation of aspirin use is predicated on a number of research that discovered regarding hyperlinks between the concurrent use of aspirin and totally different blood thinners.
One examine reported that sufferers taking warfarin and aspirin for atrial fibrillation and VTE skilled extra main bleeding occasions and had extra ER visits for bleeding than these taking warfarin alone. Related outcomes occurred for sufferers taking aspirin and direct oral anticoagulants – who had been discovered extra prone to have a bleeding occasion however not much less prone to have a blood clot.
“Whereas aspirin is an extremely vital drugs, it has a much less extensively used position than it did a decade in the past,” Barnes stated. “However with every examine, we’re seeing that there are far fewer circumstances by which sufferers who’re already on an anticoagulant are seeing profit by including aspirin on high of that remedy. The blood thinner they’re taking is already offering some safety from clots forming.”
For some individuals, aspirin will be lifesaving. Many sufferers who’ve a historical past of ischemic stroke, coronary heart assault, or a stent positioned within the coronary heart to enhance blood stream – in addition to these with a historical past of heart problems – profit from the remedy.
The problem comes when some individuals take aspirin and not using a historical past of heart problems and are additionally prescribed an anticoagulant, stated first creator Jordan Schaefer, M.D., a hematologist at U-M Well being and scientific affiliate professor of inner drugs at U-M Medical Faculty.
“Many of those individuals had been probably taking aspirin for major prevention of coronary heart assault or stroke, which we now know is much less efficient than as soon as believed, and nobody took them off of it once they began warfarin,” Schaefer stated. “These findings present how vital it’s to solely take aspirin underneath the path of your physician and to not begin taking over-the-counter medicines like aspirin till you evaluation along with your care workforce if the anticipated profit outweighs the danger.”
Reference: “Evaluation of an Intervention to Scale back Aspirin Prescribing for Sufferers Receiving Warfarin for Anticoagulation” by Jordan Okay. Schaefer, MD, Josh Errickson, Ph.D., Xiaokui Gu, MD, MA, Tina Alexandris-Souphis, RN, Mona A. Ali, PharmD, Brian Haymart, RN, MS, Scott Kaatz, DO, MSc, Eva Kline-Rogers, MS, RN, NP, Jay H. Kozlowski, MD, Gregory D. Krol, MD, Vinay Shah, MD, Suman L. Sood, MD, MSCE, James B. Froehlich, MD, MPH and Geoffrey D. Barnes, MD, MS, 19 September 2022, JAMA Community Open.
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.31973
The examine was funded by the Blue Cross Blue Defend of Michigan.
