Friday, July 27, 2007

New study: Aspirin might help infants survive artery shunts
by Kelly Winget, DCRI Communications

In a new study, researchers found that giving infants aspirin might help lower the risk of blood clots or death after having surgery to place artery shunts in their hearts.

Dr. Jennifer Li, co-chief of Pediatric Cardiology at the DCRI, led a study which reviewed the outcomes of 1004 infants of different nationalities one year after having shunt surgery. While shunts are an effective way of treating cyanotic congenital heart disease, there haven’t been many studies about how well infants respond or if aspirin was beneficial to the treatment. Cyanotic congenital heart disease is when patients have a bluish tint to their skin from not enough oxygen in their blood.

The study, published in the July 17 issue of Circulation, is one of the largest multi-center studies to review outcomes in infants following this type of surgery. Researchers found that although the rate of death or disease is high, aspirin does seem to help the infants by decreasing inflammation at the site of the blood clot and stopping additional platelets from clotting. Infants who were given aspirin were more likely to survive and not develop blood clots in the shunt, and they seemed to benefit equally from low-dose and high-dose baby aspirin.

Researchers were alarmed at the high death rate among infants who did not receive aspirin and had open shunt procedures. They believe that anti-platelet medication could help improve the infants’ flow of blood as well as reduce clots within the shunt.

Although the study indicates that aspirin might be beneficial to infant cardiac surgery patients, they believe it is important to continue researching anti-platelet and anti-thrombotic treatments for this high-risk group of patients.

Other DCRI/DTMI researchers involved in the study include Rob Califf, MD, Eric Yow, MS, and Katherine Berezny, MPH.