Abstract
Those with cardiovascular disease or cerebrovascular disease who are prescribed low-dose aspirin to reduce the risk of a further thrombotic event are advised to take the aspirin for the rest of their lives (1). But do they do so? And if not, why not? And if they do discontinue, what are the disadvantages concerning further cardiovascular events? And what are the advantages regarding reduced side effects such the incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding? And finally, what is the overall cost to the health service of aspirin discontinuation? In this edition of Thrombosis and Haemostasis Cea Soriano et al. (2) describe their attempts to answer these questions. They used The Health Improvement Network (THIN) primary care database to identify 39,513 patients aged 50–84 years during 2000–2007 who received a first prescription for low-dose aspirin (75–300 mg/ day) for secondary cardiovascular prevention, and followed these up to see what happened. In summary, here is what Cea Soriano et al. found:
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