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Speaker: No harmful effects seen with aspirin use in AMD
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MIAMI — There is no clear evidence that aspirin use has a harmful effect on age-related macular degeneration, according to a speaker here.
“Persons with AMD should consider aspirin therapy when medically indicated,” Emily Y. Chew, MD, said at the Angiogenesis, Exudation, and Degeneration 2014 meeting. Using data from the AREDS2, Chew and colleagues developed and analyzed propensity score data to study the question of whether taking aspirin has a harmful effect associated with AMD.
Emily Y. Chew
“This is a very simple statistical methodology,” she said. A propensity score was developed for patients based on characteristics of age, gender, education, race, smoking history, blood pressure measurements, angina, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Looking only at patients whose AMD developed through the course of the study and adjusting for age again, 1,914 aspirin takers were matched 1:1 with non-aspirin takers.
Cross-sectional evaluation of the baseline AREDS2 data and longitudinal assessment of development of AMD in AREDS2 using the propensity score demonstrated no harmful association of aspirin with varying severity of AMD, Chew said.
Citing other studies that examined the same question, Chew said that the totality of evidence suggests that no large harmful effect of aspirin is associated with advanced AMD, whereas there is clear evidence that aspirin is important, especially for those with cardiovascular disease.
Disclosure: Chew has no relevant financial disclosures.