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Prevention

Aspirin in primary prevention—good news and bad news

Nature Reviews Cardiology volume 9, pages 262–263 (2012)Cite this article

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The balance of benefits and risks of aspirin in primary prevention is far less clear than in secondary prevention; further data from randomized trials of individuals at intermediate cardiovascular risk are needed. Decisions about aspirin in primary prevention should be made on a case-by-case basis, and general guidelines are not justified.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Research Park, Building 3848, Suite 310, Boca Raton, 33431, FL, USA

    Charles H. Hennekens

  2. Clinical Trial and Epidemiology Service Unit, University of Oxford, Richard Doll Building, Old Road Campus, Roosevelt Drive, OX3 7LF, Oxford, UK

    Colin Baigent

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  1. Charles H. Hennekens
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  2. Colin Baigent
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charles H. Hennekens.

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Competing interests

C. H. Hennekens was funded by the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University as principal investigator on two investigator-initiated research grants funded to Florida Atlantic University by Bayer; serves in an advisory role to investigators and sponsors as chair or member of independent data and safety monitoring boards for Actelion, Amgen, Anthera, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol–Myers Squibb, the British Heart Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Lilly, and Sunovion; serves in an advisory role to the US Food and Drug Administration, the US National Institutes of Health, and UpToDate; serves as an independent scientist in an advisory role to legal counsel for GlaxoSmithKline and Stryker; serves as a speaker for the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the National Association for Continuing Education, PriMed, and the International Atherosclerosis Society; receives royalties for authorship or editorship of three textbooks, and as co-inventor on patents for inflammatory markers and cardiovascular disease that are held by Brigham and Women's Hospital; and has an investment management relationship with the West–Bacon Group within SunTrust Investment Services, which has sole discretionary investment authority and excludes investments in pharmaceutical or device companies.

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Hennekens, C., Baigent, C. Aspirin in primary prevention—good news and bad news. Nat Rev Cardiol 9, 262–263 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2012.26

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