Abstract W P165: Acetaminophen Use and Risk of Stroke and Myocardial Infarction in a Hypertensive Population

Introduction: Recent data suggest self-reported acetaminophen use is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events and that acetaminophen causes a modest rise in arterial blood pressure. There are no randomized studies, studies using verified prescription data or studies in high risk patients that investigate this relationship.Hypothesis: We aimed to assess the relationship between acetaminophen prescription data and risk of stroke and myocardial infarction in patients with hypertension.Methods: We performed a retrospective data analysis using data contained within the UK Clinical Research Practice Datalink. This includes verified prescription data. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios for stroke or MI associated with acetaminophen use over a 10-year period. Acetaminophen exposure was a time dependent variable. A propensity matched design was also used to reduce potential for confounding.Results: We included 24496 hypertensive individuals aged 65-years or older. Of these, 10878 were acetaminophen exposed and 13618 were not. There was no relationship between risk of stroke, MI or any vascular event and acetaminophen exposure on adjusted analysis (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.38; OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.76 to 1.27; OR 1.17, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.37 respectively). Results in the propensity matched sample (n=4000 per group) were similar and high frequency users (defined as receiving a prescription for u003e75% of months) were also not at increased risk.Conclusions: In summary, use of acetaminophen was not associated with an increased risk of stroke or myocardial infarction in a large cohort of hypertensive patients.