ABOUT THE ASPREE STUDY

ASPREE (ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly) 

• ASPREE is the largest primary prevention aspirin study ever undertaken in healthy older people.
• It will determine whether daily low dose aspirin prevents or delays the onset of age-related illness such as cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke), dementia, depression and certain cancers and if the benefits outweigh the risks, such as bleeding.
• ASPREE is a randomised, double-blind placebo controlled study.
• It involves Australian males and females, 70 years of age and older.
• Participants are randomly assigned (or randomised) to take either a low-dose aspirin tablet (100mg) or a matching placebo tablet (dummy pill) for an average of 5 years.
• The study has enrolled 19,113 healthy participants in urban, regional and rural locations throughout Australia and the United States.
• Annual visits involve a number of health, clinical and other measurements. Significant abnormalities will be reported to the participant’s GP for clinical follow up.
• The trial has a number of sub-studies, which investigate the effect of aspirin on specific diseases.
• ASPREE is funded by the USA and Australian governments.
• Monash University leads the trial in Australia and the Berman Center for Outcomes and Clinical Research in the USA.
• Results of the principal ASPREE study should be known in 2018.

The outcome of the trial?

• If aspirin is shown to be of overall benefit, millions of healthy older people around the world will be advised to take aspirin.
• If aspirin is shown not to be of benefit, then many older people will stop taking an unnecessary medication.

Don’t we already know enough about aspirin?

Aspirin is often prescribed for ‘secondary prevention’ in people who have had a heart attack or stroke because research demonstrates that in this instance, the benefit of preventing another heart attack or stroke clearly outweighs the risks, such as bleeding. Other studies indicate that aspirin may help prevent or delay the onset of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression and some types of cancer from happening in the first place. However, this has never been proven.

Many world health authorities are reluctant to recommend that healthy older people take low-dose aspirin for ‘primary prevention’ (to prevent a first heart attack or stroke), not because the risks are higher – people taking aspirin for secondary prevention are also at risk of side-effects – but because there is a lack of evidence about aspirin’s overall benefit in older, healthy people. Very few primary prevention aspirin studies have included people aged over 70. For the first time, ASPREE will weigh the potential benefits versus the potential risks, in healthy older people.

People are also living longer. If life expectancy continues along the same trajectory as history, it is predicted that 50% of Australian babies born today will live to be over 100. At the heart of the ASPREE study is a goal to discover how to maintain years of good quality life within that increased lifespan.  This is why the ASPREE study is so important: the trial focusses only on older people, aiming to discover how to maintain years of good quality of life through disease prevention. The results will be relevant to many ageing people around the world.