Online ISSN: 2515-8260

Low Dose Aspirin Therapy and Renal Function in Elderly Patients: An Institutional Based Study

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Javed Yusuf Shah, Javed Nilofar Shah

Abstract

Introduction: The use of aspirin as a pain reliever has been in use for the past 10 years. Its therapeutic use has also been proven to prevent heart attack and other related ailments. Elderly individuals who are at greater risk are mostly prescribed low dose aspirin as an anti-platelet drug to prevent thrombosis. Materials and Methodology: Aspirin drug with a dose of 100 mg/day was administered either through oral route or by a nasogastric tube after having breakfast for a period of 2 weeks and then the drug was stopped, and the investigations were continued for a further 3 weeks. Blood samples and 24hour urine samples were collected every week: before the administration of first dose of aspirin, and at the end of every treatment week, and continued for further 3 consecutive weeks after the discontinuity of aspirin drug. Student’s paired t-test is used to check for the weekly changes of all measurements compared to baseline, multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures (MANOVA) for the overall effect of aspirin drug during the study period. Results: A highly significant association between the variations from baseline to week 2 in both creatinine and Cu acid was recorded (r = 0.7, P < 0.0001). However, such correlations were not found between changes in values of C-G and Cu acid. The decrease in Ccr was also influenced by low haemoglobin levels (R2 = 0.075, P = 0.006) and by albumin levels with borderline significance (R2 = 0.027, P = 0.08). Conclusion: The results of the present study might directly reflect that the low dose aspirin administration in elderly inpatients for a relatively briefer period of time has a significant effect on their renal tubular function; hence a long-term drug intake may have some major harmful effect on renal activity. These findings have received a major necessity to conduct further research in younger and healthier patients and also on long-term usage of aspirin therapy.

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