Heart Patients Taking Aspirin: Don't Take Ibuprofen Also
According to Michael Farkouh, MD, MPH, director of clinical trials at Mount Sinai School of Medicine Heart Center, a recent study of heart patients taking aspirin who are also taking ibuprofen for pain are at a significantly higher risk for heart attacks. Those patients who took aspirin and high-dose ibuprofen were more than nine times likely to have a heart attack than those on a lower dose ibuprofen. “The whole Vioxx thing was based on 64 heart events among 21,000 patients studied," Farkouh says. "Here we are talking about potentially a higher magnitude of impact. The interaction of ibuprofen with aspirin is a bigger public health concern than Vioxx was."
“This is the first randomized trial evidence to show risk of interaction between ibuprofen and aspirin to be real,” said Dr. Farkouh. “Doctors should not give high risk cardiovascular patients ibuprofen for pain while they are taking aspirin for their heart. Cardiologists, rheumatologists and gastroenterologists need to work together to fully evaluate the evidence at hand to make proper recommendations to primary care physicians.”
Please consult with your doctor to discuss alternative solutions if you are taking both aspirin and ibuprofen.