Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug use and cardiovascular risks after coronary stent implantation.

Study Objective: To determine whether use of nonselective nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-selective inhibitors in patients with coronary stents increased the 3-year rate of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).

Design: Population-based cohort study.

Data Sources: The Danish National Patient Registry, the Western Denmark Heart Registry, the Danish Nationwide Prescription Database, the Danish Civil Registration System, and the National Registry of Causes of Deaths.

Patients: A total of 13,001 patients who underwent first-ever percutaneous coronary intervention with stent implantation between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2005.

Measurements And Main Results: All patients were followed for 3 years after stent implantation for MACE, defined as the first occurrence of myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, target-lesion revascularization, or cardiac death. Patients' comorbidities were identified from the hospital registries; time-varying use of NSAIDs and concomitant drugs was determined from the Danish Nationwide Prescription Database. For each clinical outcome (MACE), the 3-year risk was computed. We used Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis to compute hazard ratios (HRs) as a measure of relative risk, controlling for potential confounders. During the follow-up period, 5407 patients (41.6%) redeemed at least one NSAID prescription. There were 686 hospitalizations for myocardial infarction (5.3% of patients), 146 for stent thrombosis (1.1%), and 1091 for target-lesion revascularization (8.4%). A total of 1220 patients (9.4%) died during the follow-up period; 637 (4.9%) died of cardiac causes. Compared with no NSAID use, the adjusted HR for MACE was 1.04 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.83-1.31) for nonselective NSAID use and 1.00 (95% CI 0.81-1.25) for COX-2 inhibitor use.

Conclusion: Use of nonselective NSAIDs or COX-2 inhibitors was not associated with an increased rate of MACE in patients with coronary stents. However, we cannot rule out small risks associated with individual NSAIDs.