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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Study Deems Aspirin Resistance As False Diagnosis.


Bloomberg News Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (12/6, Nussbaum) reports that "there's no such thing as aspirin resistance, according to a study Share to FacebookShare to Twitter that suggests a false diagnosis may be unnecessarily raising the number of people given costlier prescription drugs with more side effects to lower their risk of heart attack and stroke." According to the article, "the report, by University of Pennsylvania researchers, found the coatings put on aspirin by makers such as Bayer AG (BAYN) mask uptake of the medicine in the blood, leading to false diagnoses that it's not working, said the study published in the journal Circulation." The article adds that "one in five Americans take a low-dose aspirin tablet daily to reduce heart risks, with most taking coated versions sold as less harsh on the stomach, the university said in a statement." Lead researcher Garret FitzGerald stated that there is no evidence proving that the coatings make aspirin more tolerable.
        MedPage Today Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (12/6, Kaiser) details that "healthy volunteers undergoing various tests exhibited characteristics of aspirin 'response' in some phases of the study and of 'nonresponse' in other phases, reported Garret A. FitzGerald, MD, and colleagues." According to the article, "the lack of a consistent mechanism of action to ascribe to aspirin resistance suggests there is no genetic basis and, in fact, that 'pseudoresistance' is caused by delayed and reduced absorption of coated aspirins, they concluded in the study." Notably, the researchers found that "the 'pseudoresistance' seems to reflect delayed and reduced drug absorption from the coated drugs, which calls into question the use of point-of-care diagnostic tests for aspirin resistance."

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