14-06-2013, 01:05 PM
ASPIRIN INCREASES RISK OF BLINDNESS
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ABSTRACT
Regular use of aspirin can dramatically increase the risk of an eye disease called AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENARATION (AMD) that causes blindness in people over 50’s, researchers from the University of Sydney. Aspirin is one of the most widely used medications in the world and is commonly used in prevention of cardiovascular disease, such as myocardial infarction (heart attack) and ischemic stroke, according to the report published by JAMA internal medicine.
While in recent study suggested that regular aspirin use was associated to AMD, particularly the more visually devastating neo vascular (wet)form. Smoking is also a preventable risk factor for AMD, researchers said. The scientist Gerald Liew, of the university of Sydney Australia, and colleagues examined whether regular aspirin use (defined as once or more per week in the past year) was associated with a higher risk of developing AMD by conducting a prospective analysis of data from an Australian study that included four examinations during a 15-year period. Of 2,389 participants, 257 individuals (10.8 percent) were regular aspirin users.
The cumulative incidence of neo-vascular AMD among non-regular user was 0.8 percent at five years, 1.6 percent at 10 years, and 3.7 percent at 15 years; among regular aspirin users, the cumulative incidence was 1.9 percent at five years, 7 percent at 10 years and 9.3 percent at 15 years, respectively," the researchers said.
Regular Aspirin use was significantly associated with an increased incidence of neo-vascular AMD, researcher’s said. "Regular aspirin use was significantly associated with an increased incidence of neo-vascular AMD," they added. But the researchers noted that any decision concerning whether to stop aspirin therapy is "complex and needs to be individualized. Currently there is insufficient evidence to recommend changing clinical practice, accept perhaps in patients with strong risk factor for neo-vascular AMD( e.g. Existing late AMD in the fellow eye), in whom it may be appropriate to raise the potentially small risk of incident neo-vascular AMD with long term aspirin therapy, researchers conclude.