Aspirin can help women in stroke

Aspirin reduces stroke risk in women, not men

Washington: According to a new analysis by Duke University Medical Center cardiologists, aspirin can significantly reduce the risk of stroke in women, but it appears to have no protective effect on men. The researchers found that aspirin increases the risk of bleeding, or haemorrhagic, strokes in men with no effect on women. For the more common form of stroke known as ischemic stroke, in which blood flow to a portion of the brain is blocked, aspirin had no effect on men but reduced the incidence in women. The seemingly conflicting results of this study, along with the results of other studies, should lead to more intensive research into the differences between the genders when it comes to cerebrovascular disease and drugs use to prevent it, the researchers said. They emphasized that both healthy men and women who can tolerate aspirin should be taking the medication, since this analysis demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing strokes in women, and it is already known to reduce heart attacks in men.

"While we've known that aspirin is effective in preventing stroke in patients who already have cerebrovascular disease, very little is known about its abilities as a primary prevention method in otherwise healthy people," said Duke cardiology fellow Jeffrey Berger, M.D., who presented the results of his analysis. "Until the advent of the Women's Health Study (WHS), clinical trials included primarily men and found that aspirin had a positive effect in reducing the risk for heart attacks, but had no effect on stroke," Berger continued. For his analysis on the effects of gender on aspirin's ability to prevent stroke, Berger combined the data from six different randomized clinical trials, including the WHS, which yielded a total of 95,456 patients, none of whom had coronary artery disease. Of that total, 51,342 were women. The trials all involved the comparison of low-dose aspirin versus placebo for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. "Among the women who were involved in these trials, the use of aspirin was associated with a statistically significant 17 percent reduction in the risk of stroke," he said.
-Nov 16, 2005