Barcelona, Spain - The widespread recommendation for the routine use of low-dose aspirin in primary prevention of cardiovascular events for all patients with type 2 diabetes should be revisited, experts said at the European Society of Cardiology 2009 Congress.
Currently, most of the major scientific bodies, including the American Heart Association (AHA), American College of Cardiology (ACC), European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), uniformly recommend giving aspirin to these patients. The lone exception is the Canadian Diabetes Association, which says that the decision to prescribe aspirin should be left to the discretion of the individual physician. Yet there is inadequate trial evidence for the efficacy and safety of low-dose aspirin in this setting, Dr Carlo Patrono (Catholic University, Rome, Italy) told meeting attendees.
"If a patient has had a prior event, there is no question that he or she should be on aspirin, regardless of whether the patient is or is not diabetic, because we have plenty of evidence there," Patrono commented to heartwire. "But we don't have evidence for the efficacy and safety of low-dose aspirin in diabetics without a prior vascular event or without overt vascular disease. We need direct randomized evidence."
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