Study on Risk of Gastrointestinal Complications in Low-dose Aspirin Therapy Using the National Receipt Database

To garner additional insights into the risk of gastrointestinal (GI) complications among users of low-dose aspirin (LDA) products, concomitant use of LDA products and anti-secretory drugs was investigated using the national database. The frequencies of gastrointestinal diseases among users of LDA products were also investigated. The main purpose of this study was to assess the differences in gastrointestinal damage risk between enteric-coated and buffered LDA product use.LDA use in combination with histamine H2-receptor antagonists (H2RAs) and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was examined for the period January 2010 to December 2010. In addition, the frequencies of claim codes for gastrointestinal diseases among users of enteric-coated LDA and buffered LDA products were investigated for December 2010.In 2010, 24.0％ of enteric-coated LDA users and 17.2％ of buffered LDA users concomitantly used PPIs. There were substantial differences between enteric-coated LDA and buffered LDA users with regard to the frequency of PPI use. H2RAs were concomitantly used by 21.5％ of enteric-coated LDA users and 20.8％ of buffered LDA users. During December 2010, the frequencies of hemorrhagic gastric ulcer and lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage among entericcoated LDA users were higher than among buffered LDA users (0.31％ vs 0.26％, and 0.085％ vs 0.062％, respectively).These findings may imply that the risk of GI complications associated with buffered LDA use is lower than that with enteric-coated LDA use.