Low dose aspirin vs clopidogrel
-
Doctors find drug that is better than aspirin at preventing heart attacks
Discovery that clopidogrel is a more effective blood thinner could transform health guidelines worldwide
-
I thought the idea of baby aspirin was to have a less powerful blood thinner. That it’s lower efficacy was a feature not a bug for certain applications.
I also thought this was well known in the medical community.
ChatGPT quickly spit this out:
Ticagrelor ≈ Prasugrel > Clopidogrel > Aspirin
-
I think the devil is in the details. Like what level of CAD does the patient have?
Remember the days when doctors recommended that just about anyone could take baby aspirin to prevent stroke and heart attack? It was taken for granted and I'm guessing we all know people who just routinely took a daily baby aspirin. That advice was rolled back some time ago when it was discovered that the risks of bleeding outweighed the possible benefits in stroke/heart attack reduction, and that only certain classes of people should take blood thinners. Like people who have already had a heart attack or stroke, or who have CAD.
I guess the aspirin vs clopidogrel debate for use in those special classes of patients has been going on for some time and that cardiologists are reconsidering their thinking.
A somewhat more detailed analysis of the Lancet paper along with some history. This kind of sums it up (my bolding):
A recent meta-analysis by an international team of cardiologists finds that clopidogrel – which stops blood platelets from clumping – is a superior choice to aspirin in the long run for patients with established coronary artery disease.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/common-drug-better-aspirin-repeat-120015629.html
