Aspirin for the primary prevention of sepsis

Sepsis, a syndrome caused by a dysregulated host response to an infection, 1 Singer M Deutschman CS Seymour CW et al. The third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (Sepsis-3). JAMA. 2016; 315: 801-810 Crossref PubMed Scopus (9713) Google Scholar affects around 50 million people each year and might have accounted for nearly a fifth of all global deaths in 2017. 2 Rudd KE Johnson SC Agesa KM et al. Global, regional, and national sepsis incidence and mortality, 1990–2017: analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet. 2020; 395: 200-211 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (939) Google Scholar Facing such a serious threat to global health, researchers have mainly focused on the identification of specific adjunct therapies to treat patients who have already developed sepsis. So far, such therapies have had limited success, leaving anti-infective drugs as the only treatment for sepsis. Such therapies are associated with the spread of antimicrobial resistance, which might further aggravate the global burden of sepsis. Effect of aspirin on deaths associated with sepsis in healthy older people (ANTISEPSIS): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled primary prevention trialDaily low-dose aspirin treatment did not reduce deaths associated with sepsis in community dwelling older adults. Our findings do not support the use of aspirin as a primary prevention strategy to reduce the burden of sepsis in this population. Full-Text PDF