Thursday, December 20, 2012

Aspirin and AMD

Two studies suggest a increasing risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) with aspiring use:

JAMA 12/2012:

Among an adult cohort, aspirin use 5 years prior to observed incidence was not associated with incident early or late AMD. However, regular aspirin use 10 years prior was associated with a small but statistically significant increase in the risk of incident late and neovascular AMD.

This is in support of an earlier study:

Ophthalmology 1/2012:

Early AMD was present in 36.4% of the participants and late AMD was present in 3.3% of participants. Monthly aspirin use was reported by 1931 (41.2%), at least once weekly by 7%, and daily use by 17.3%. For daily aspirin users, the ORs, adjusted for potential confounders, showed a steady increase with increasing severity of AMD grades.