Aspirin best-value treatment for heart disease

LONDON - Aspirin and cheap blood pressure tablets are the most cost-effective treatments to prevent heart disease, one of the world's biggest killers, a study has shown.

The analysis found that low-dose aspirin was as effective and much cheaper than statins, which lower cholesterol, or the blood-thinning drug clopidogrel, which is sold under the brand name Plavix by the French drug firm Sanofi-Synthelabo.

"This analysis confirms the poor cost-effectiveness of statins and clopidogrel compared with aspirin and antihypertensive treatments," Tom Marshall, of the University of Birmingham in England, said in the latest British Medical Journal.

Marshall estimated the cost of the different treatments for individuals and in combination for patients with various levels of risk for developing heart disease.

He calculated it would cost about £3500 ($9380) a year to prevent a heart problem in a patient with a 10 per cent risk of the disease over five years with aspirin, compared to £18,300 ($49,000) for drugs that lower blood pressure, £60,000 ($160,800) for clopidogrel and £61,400 ($165,000) for simvastatin, the cholesterol fighter Merck & Co market under the name Zocor.

No one from the manufacturers was immediately available to comment on the analysis.

Marshall compared the high-priced interventions to giving patients a Rolls-Royce when they would get a similar benefit from using a bicycle.

All the emphasis and advertising were on the latest drugs and the cheaper, older treatments are forgotten, he said.

"There should be greater emphasis on simple treatments. Aspirin, a low-cost blood-pressure lowering treatment, should be given much greater prominence and less attention should be given to high-cost interventions," Marshall said.

The risk of developing heart disease increases with age.

Smoking, a sedentary lifestyle and raised cholesterol and blood pressure levels are factors which increase the risk of developing heart disease.

- REUTERS