MedWire News: Patients receiving low-dose aspirin for cardiovascular conditions may benefit from taking a daily stomach acid-suppressing drug called a proton pump inhibitor to reduce their risk of developing peptic ulcers, study results show.

"Low-dose aspirin is standard treatment for prevention of cardiovascular events in at-risk patients," explain Dr Neville Yeomans, from the University of Western Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, and team.

"However, long-term administration of low-dose aspirin is associated with a greater risk of adverse events, including gastroduodenal ulcers," they add.

To investigate whether daily treatment with a proton pump inhibitor can reduce the risk of ulcers in such patients, the team studied 991 participants, aged at least 60 years, who were taking low-dose aspirin every day.

The patients and had no previous history of peptic ulcers and most were not infected with the ulcer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori.

In total, 493 patients were assigned to take a proton pump inhibitor called esomeprazole every day for 26 weeks, while 498 were assigned to take a dummy medication.

By the end of the study period, just eight patients taking the proton pump inhibitor had developed peptic ulcers compared with 27 of those taking the dummy treatment.

Patients taking the proton pump inhibitor were also significantly less likely to develop the condition erosive oesophagitis, in which the lining of the oesophagus is damaged by exposure to stomach acid, and were more likely to be free of heartburn by the end of the study than those taking the dummy treatment.

Dr Yeomans and team conclude: "Our results demonstrated that 26 weeks' treatment with esomeprazole 20 mg once daily significantly reduced the risk of gastric and/or duodenal ulcer formation in predominantly Helicobacter pylori-negative patients who received low-dose aspirin treatment for secondary prevention of cardiovascular events."

The research is published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.