Aspirin may not help prevent a first heart attack or stroke.

TIME (11/18, Park) reports that research published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at the American Heart Association annual meeting suggests that aspirin may not help prevent a first heart attack or stroke. The study included more than 14,600 “volunteers between the ages of 60 years and 85 years.” None of the “participants...had had any heart events, but” they all “had at least one of the risk factors that could make them vulnerable.”

        Forbes (11/17) contributor Larry Husten writes that the study “randomized...patients to aspirin 100 mg once daily or no aspirin in addition to conventional therapy.” Participants “were followed for up to 6.5 years for the primary combined endpoint of cardiovascular death, nonfatal stroke, or nonfatal MI.” Husten writes that “the independent Data Monitoring Committee discontinued the study after a smaller number than expected endpoints had occurred and it became clear the trial would not be able to reach a statistically significant result.”

        CardioSource (11/18) reports, “In both the aspirin and no aspirin groups, 56 fatal events occurred.” Participants “with an occurrence of nonfatal stroke totaled 114 in the aspirin group and 108 in the no aspirin group; of nonfatal myocardial infarction, 20 in the aspirin group and 38 in the no aspirin group; of undefined cerebrovascular events, three in the aspirin group and five in the no aspirin group.”

        MedPage Today (11/18, Phend) pointed out that “an exploratory analysis suggested a 28% probability that the trial would have been positive if it had continued for the full planned number of events instead of being terminated early for futility after a median 5.02 years of follow-up.” HealthDay (11/18, Thompson) also covers the story.