About 10 percent of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery experience sudden loss of kidney function, but giving patients aspirin or blood pressure medication before or after surgery does not reduce the risk of acute kidney injury, according to a study in JAMA.
Some studies had suggested administering aspirin or clonidine, a blood pressure medication, could reduce the risk of these acute kidney injuries, but harms associated with each medication, like increased risk of bleeding or abnormally low blood pressure, could actually increase the risk of kidney injury in patients, researchers found.
To get to the bottom of it, researchers randomly assigned 6,905 noncardiac surgical patients in 22 countries to take aspirin, clonidine or a placebo before and after surgery. They found neither medication regimen reduced the risk of acute kidney injury, as 13.4 percent of aspirin patients and 13 percent of clonidine patients developed an injury, and just 12.3 percent and 12.7 percent of placebo patients did, according to the study.
In fact, researchers found aspirin increased the risk of bleeding, and bleeding was tied to a greater risk of subsequent acute kidney injury. Additionally, the blood pressure medication was linked to a risk of abnormally low blood pressure, which then in turn was associated with higher risk of kidney injury.