Aspirin doesn’t enhance survival for Covid sufferers: UK examine

A patient suffering from COVID-19 will be treated on May 20th, 2021 in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Darmstadt Clinic in Darmstadt.

Kai Pfaffenbach | Reuters

LONDON – The cheap and widely available drug aspirin does not improve the survival of patients hospitalized with Covid-19, a UK study found.

Oxford University researchers had hoped the blood-thinning drug could help hospitalized Covid-19 patients who are at increased risk of blood clots forming in their blood vessels, particularly in the lungs, but found that aspirin was not helped prevent deaths.

On the study – part of a larger “RECOVERY” study that looked at various possible treatments for people hospitalized with coronavirus, nearly 15,000 patients were hospitalized with the virus. About half of the patients received 150 mg of aspirin daily compared to the other half who received only the usual treatment.

The study found that “there was no evidence that aspirin treatment reduced mortality” and “no significant difference” in the number of people who died, with 17% of people in both groups dying after 28 days in the hospital.

“The data shows that aspirin was not associated with a reduction in 28-day mortality or the risk of progression to invasive mechanical ventilation or death in patients hospitalized with Covid-19,” said Peter Horby , Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and lead investigator of the RECOVERY study, said the study.

“While aspirin was associated with a slightly increased chance of a live discharge, that does not appear to be enough to justify its widespread use in patients hospitalized with Covid-19.”

Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology in the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford and a lead researcher on the study, described the results as “disappointing”.

“There was strong evidence that blood clotting could be responsible for deterioration in lung function and death in patients with severe Covid-19. Aspirin is inexpensive and is often used in other illnesses to reduce the risk of blood clots, so it is disappointing that it did. ”Did not have much of an impact on these patients. That’s why large randomized trials are so important – to find out which treatments work and which don’t. “

The RECOVERY study has already made several life-saving discoveries, including that dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid, was able to save lives in seriously ill Covid-19 patients.

The results of the latest aspirin study will be published shortly on the pre-print site medRxiv and have been submitted to a leading peer-reviewed medical journal.

Comments are closed.