Mélanie Gomez / Photo credit: Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP
A study published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association”, an American medical journal, looks back on the importance of taking aspirin every day after a heart attack. A preventive treatment not followed enough by patients. However, aspirin could reduce recurrences of infarction by a quarter.
Aspirin to prevent recurrences after a heart attack. According to a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Associationa American medical journal, after a heart attack, it is very important to take aspirin every day. Few patients do it in France and in the world. Yet this cheap drug can save lives.
These researchers studied more than 10,000 adults who had already had a heart attack in 51 countries to check whether they were taking this simple treatment to prevent recurrence, namely aspirin. Indeed, it is one of the main recommendations when you have already had a heart attack and unfortunately, we are far from the mark, including in countries like France. Only 65% of patients comply with this prescription.
20% risk of recurrence
A very regrettable finding, says Professor Gabriel Steg, cardiologist at Bichat Hospital in Paris. “The risk of having a second heart attack after a first is very substantial. It is around 20% the first year and another 20 to 25% in the following three years. It is not at all trivial and fortunately , we can reduce this risk with drugs in particular and the first of the drugs is a small dose of aspirin which has a blood thinning effect. This has an effectiveness which is now well established.
So who is to blame ? Doctors perhaps do not insist enough on the interest of this preventive treatment for life, and patients also do not always measure its importance. However, it is well demonstrated today, aspirin reduces recurrences of infarction by a quarter.