Study finds death rates lower among seriously ill Covid patients given cheap painkillers

After all, major research suggests that giving aspirin to hospitalized Covid patients could improve their chances of survival.

The cheap pain reliever showed promise in the papers last year, but was canceled after a large study in England found it had no effect on critically ill coronavirus patients.

But new research from George Washington University suggests that aspirin may still be effective for patients with moderate disease during their first few days in the hospital.

A study of more than 100,000 Covid patients found that those who took blood thinners had a 15 percent lower risk of dying from the virus within 28 days.

The patients were in their 60s, and about 15,000 people took aspirin daily for five days, while the remaining 96,000 received regular hospital care.

Those given painkillers also had a 29% lower risk of blood clots, one of the deadly complications of Covid.

The researchers found that the patients who benefited the most included those over the age of 60 and those with comorbidities.

The findings differ from Oxford University’s RECOVERY study, which found that aspirin did not reduce the risk of death from Covid. The trial first found that dexamethasone reduced patient deaths and the drug is now considered to have saved thousands of lives (stock image)

Aspirins are inexpensive blood thinners that are often used to relieve pain, reduce swelling, and lower high temperature.

They are available over the counter for just 65 pence for 33 tablets or about two pence per pill.

In the study, published today in the journal GIAMA, from January 2020 to September 2021, people were followed at 64 medical centers in the United States.

It included 112,269 Covid patients aged 18 to 80 years.

Of these, 15,272 received daily 81 mg aspirin tablets for the first five days in hospital.

Over-the-counter tablets usually contain 300 mg of the drug.

More than half of the aspirin-treated patients had high blood pressure (76% of all patients), heart disease (55%) and diabetes (51%) at that time.

Nearly half were also taking aspirin pills before they were hospitalized with Covid. This was 4% in the control group.

The results showed that about 22% of people over the age of 80 who took aspirin died within 28 days of hospitalization, while less than 26% died in the other group.

For young people aged 61 to 80 years, 13% of people in the aspirin group and 16% in the other died.

About one percent of aspirin patients had blood clots, compared to 1.4 percent in other groups.

Overall, 10.2% of the aspirin group died within 28 days, compared with 11.8% in the control group.

It represents a 15% reduced risk, the researchers said.

However, there was no significant reduction in the risk of brain or intestinal bleeding, which could also be caused by Covid, between the two groups.

Jonathan Chow, associate professor of intensive care at George Washington University, who led the latest research, said in the conclusion: “Aspirin use on the first day of hospitalization was associated with a lower probability of death in the hospital at 28 days.

“Significant subgroups that could benefit from aspirin included patients over 60 years of age with comorbidities.”

Unlike the Oxford study, the study did not ensure that each group equally had underlying health conditions or similar age distributions.

He was also using aspirin, half as strong as in the other study, which was 150 mg per tablet.

The Oxford group also looked at critically ill patients as part of the RECOVERY study, which looked at the reuse of existing drugs to treat Covid.

This rigorous study was responsible for the approval of dexamethasone and tocilizumab for the treatment of Covid patients.

But the trial found no “evidence” that aspirin reduces deaths or the likelihood of invasive medical ventilation (pictured: Edward Wilsher, 84, was hospitalized with coronavirus in Newcastle earlier this year)

Professor Chow admitted that “further research is needed to confirm our findings, as our study failed to establish a definitive causal relationship.”

In the Oxford study, 7,000 Covid patients in their 60s at the hospital were given an aspirin pill a day between November and March.

It also followed up with 7,000 more patients who were hospitalized with Covid but did not take the drug.

They found a slight reduction in hospital stays for patients taking aspirin, with an average of eight days instead of nine days.

But there was no “evidence” that it reduced death rates, and 17 percent of participants in both groups died from the virus.

Professor Peter Horby, an infectious disease specialist and leading researcher at Oxford, said there was a “small increase” in patients’ chances of being discharged alive.

He added, however, that this does not appear to be sufficient to justify its widespread use for hospitalized Covid patients.