Elderly patients who take low-dose aspirin have a 60% increased relative risk of major gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding compared with peers not using the medication, an Australian study suggests.  

The large, randomised controlled trial also showed that the absolute risk of bleeding rose significantly with increasing age and certain risk factors, including chronic kidney disease (CKD).  

For a healthy 70-year-old with no identifiable risk factors who did not take aspirin, the researchers estimated their absolute five-year risk of a GI bleed was 0.25% and this would nearly double with use of daily enteric-coated 100mg aspirin.

At age 80 the absolute risk for a bleed without aspirin was 0.6% and this rose to 0.96% with aspirin.