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New Study Reinforces Aspirin’s Effectiveness Against Heart Disease

by Medindia Content Team on Jun 14 2007 6:18 PM

A new study has found that aspirin effectively treats patients with heart disease.

Earlier, a study had shown that aspirin resistance is rare, less than 5 percent, at all doses (81 mg, 162 mg and 325 mg).

Aspirin is taken by millions of patients to prevent and treat coronary artery disease. Most coronary artery disease deaths are caused by platelets sticking together and forming blood clots (thrombosis) that block blood flow within arteries, resulting in a heart attack. By inhibiting clotting, aspirin keeps platelets from sticking together by specifically blocking an important enzyme, COX-1.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by Paul Gurbel at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore.

As part of the study, researchers studied 125 patients with a history of coronary artery disease treated with aspirin. All patients were randomly placed on 81 mg, 162 mg and 325 mg of aspirin daily for four weeks each for a total of 12 weeks.

Researchers tested the response to aspirin by multitude methods and found that it was highly effective at all dose levels in its ability to block its target, COX-1.

“The research also shows that aspirin may be effective at blocking other pathways that promote platelet activation, independent of COX-1. Further research is now under way to better understand these additional pathways that may cause clotting in patients in an effort to continue to improve patient outcomes,” Gurbel said.

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The findings of the study were published in the June issue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.

Source-ANI
LIN/M


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