Early Administration of Low-Dose Aspirin for the Prevention of Preterm and Term Preeclampsia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, 04/26/2012  Clinical Article

Roberge S et al. – Low–dose aspirin administrated at or before 16 weeks of gestation reduces the risk of preterm but not term preeclampsia.

• A systematic review and meta–analysis of randomized controlled trials were performed.
• Women who were randomized to low–dose aspirin or placebo/no treatment at or before 16 weeks of gestation were included.
• The outcomes of interest were preterm preeclampsia (delivery <37 weeks) and term preeclampsia.
• Pooled relative risks (RR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed.

• The search identified 7,941 citations but only five trials on a combined total of 556 women fulfilled the inclusion criteria.
• When compared to controls, aspirin initiated ≤16 weeks of gestation was associated with a major reduction of the risk of preterm preeclampsia (RR 0.11, 95% CI 0.04–0.33) but had no significant effect on term preeclampsia (RR 0.98, 95% CI 0.42–2.33).