ASPIRIN RESISTANCE: AN EMERGING THREAT TO CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE PATIENTS AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH AGE AND GENDER

Abstract

Objective: To examine the existence of pharmacological aspirin resistance andits association with age and gender in cardiovascular disease patients. Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted from October 2015 toDecember 2016 at Pharmacology department Army Medical College, NationalUniversity of Medical Sciences (NUMS), Rawalpindi in collaboration with ArmedForces Institute of Cardiology and National Institute of Heart Diseases (AFICNIHD)and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rawalpindi. Plateletfunction was analyzed by light transmission aggregometry (LTA) usingarachidonic acid as an agonist. Data was analyzed by using SPSS version 23.Chi-square test and students t test was applied to evaluate the categorical andnumerical variables respectively. Results: Total of 384 cardiovascular patients meeting the explicit inclusion criteria were enrolled. There were 272 (70.8%) male and 112 (29.2%) femalepatients with the mean age of 48.22 ± 11.87 years. The statistical analysisrevealed 13.8% (n=53) aspirin resistant cases in study population with 14.7 %(n=40) male and 11.6% (n=13) female (mean age 49.87±13.20 years) werefound to be aspirin non responders. Conclusion: Our study suggests that phenomenon of aspirin resistance doesexist in Pakistani population, and it is not modulated by age and gender ofpatients. Key Words: Aspirin resistance, aspirin non responders, IHD, age, gender, LTA