A Statin a Day to Keep the Doctor Away? Comparing Aspirin and Statins for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

For the primary prevention of cardiovascular (CV) disease, aspirin reduces the risk for major vascular events by approximately 15% to 20% with an absolute reduction of approximately 0.1%. Major bleeding occurs at an excess of approximately 2 cases per 1000 patient-years with aspirin therapy. For primary prevention, statin therapy has been shown to reduce the risk of CV events by approximately 30% to 40% with an absolute reduction of 1% to 2%. Rhabdomyolysis is rare, with an incidence of 3.4 cases per 100 000 patient-years. Compared with aspirin, statins have a more favorable risk-to-benefit profile for primary prevention.

Keywords: aspirin; bleeding; cardiovascular disease; primary prevention; rhabdomyolysis; statins.