Prevention Of Cardiovascular Events With Aspirin In Diabetic Patients: A Meta-analysis

Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of Aspirin(ASA) for prevention of cardiovascular events(CVD) in diabetic patients.Methods Electronic database searching was performed on PubMed, Cochrane Library,OVID,CBM,CNKI,VIP up to November 2008. Randomized controlled trials(RCT) assessing aspirin treatment for prevention of cardiovascular events in diabetic patients were selected and assessed for the methodological quality.And the extracted data were calculated using Stata version 9.2(Stata Corporation,College Station, Texas,USA).Results Six trials met the inclusion criteria,involving 8230 participants with diabetes mellitus(DM).Meta-analysis indicated that aspirin treatment was associated with a significant reduction in the total cardiovascular events comparing with placebo treatment[P=0.003,OR, 0.818,95%CI(0.716,0.934)].However,no statistical significance was showed for low-dose aspirin on the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes[P=0.363,OR=0.902,95%CI(0.722, 1.127)].Adverse effects were reported in 3 studies.It suggested that low-dose aspirin was safe.Conclusion This meta-analysis implied that aspirin treatment can be a choice for DM,especially for the patients who have evidence of cardiovascular disease,but the low-dose aspirin appeared to have no effect on the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes.At the same time,low-dose Aspirin has little side effects,with well tolerant.