Background: Use of low-dose aspirin increases the risk for peptic ulcer bleeding (PUB) by approximately 60%. However, whether use of low-dose aspirin influences the outcome of PUB is not known.
Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of low-dose aspirin use at the time of hospital admission on 30-day mortality among hospitalized PUB patients.
Methods: This population-based study was conducted using data from the hospital discharge registries in the Danish counties of North Jutland, Aarhus, and Viborg. We identified all hospitalized patients with a first-time diagnosis of PUB and their comorbidities between 1991 and 2003. This information was linked with data from the counties' prescription databases and the Danish Civil Registration System to determine the preadmission use of low-dose aspirin (75 or 150 mg) and mortality within 30 days after admission. We calculated mortality ratios (MRs) according to the use of low-dose aspirin, adjusted for age, sex, comorbidity, alcoholism, and use of other PUB-associated or antiulcer drugs.
Results: We identified 7204 patients with a discharge diagnosis of PUB (3751 men, 3453 women; median age, 71 years [interquartile range, 62-82 years]). The overall mortality within 30 days after admission with PUB was 10.7%. Among all patients with PUB, 1029 (14.3%) were current (ie, at the time of admission) users of low-dose aspirin and 709 (9.8%) were former low-dose aspirin users, respectively. Compared with those who never used lowdose aspirin, current users had an adjusted 30-day MR of 0.83 (95% CI, 0.68-1.01).
Conclusion: The results of this follow-up study suggest that current use of low-dose aspirin was not associated with increased mortality in these hospitalized patients with PUB.