Aspirin lowers mortality in patients with community acquired pneumonia

From a recently published study:

Methods and Results Consecutive patients admitted to the University‐Hospital Policlinico Umberto I (Rome, Italy) with community‐onset pneumonia were recruited and prospectively followed up until discharge or death...

One thousand and five patients (age, 74.7±15.1 years) were included in the study: 390 were receiving aspirin (100 mg/day) at the time of hospitalization, whereas 615 patients were aspirin free. During the follow‐up, 16.2% of patients died; among these, 19 (4.9%) were aspirin users and 144 (23.4%; P less than 0.001) were aspirin nonusers. Overall, nonfatal CVEs occurred in 7% of patients, 8.3% in nonaspirin users, and 4.9% in aspirin users (odds ratio, 1.77; 95% confidence interval, 1.03 to 3.04; P=0.040). The Cox regression analysis showed that pneumonia severity index (PSI), severe sepsis, pleural effusion, and PaO2/FiO2 ratio less than 300 negatively influenced survival, whereas aspirin therapy was associated with improved survival. Compared to patients receiving aspirin, the propensity score adjusted analysis confirmed that patients not taking aspirin had a hazard ratio of 2.07 (1.08 to 3.98; P=0.029) for total mortality.

Conclusions This study shows that chronic aspirin use is associated with lower mortality rate within 30 days after hospital admission in a large cohort of patients with pneumonia.

This is astounding and far more robust than any of today's core measures or care pathway components. This is yet another reason core measures are ineffective: they are hopelessly out of date. Remember, this finding is not new. Based on an older study I suggested, almost two years ago, that aspirin administration be part of the pneumonia order set.