Multicenter Study Indicates One Aspirin Can Do the Job of Four in Preventing Stroke

LESS IS MORE is the early word from the latest and largest aspirin trial. The preliminary results of the United Kingdom Transient Ischemic Attack/Aspirin Trial (UK TIA)—the first large study to evaluate low-dose against high-dose aspirin—indicate that 300 mg of aspirin daily is just as effective as 1200 mg in preventing myocardial infarction and stroke in patients with cerebrovascular disease. And as expected, the lower dose has fewer side effects.Charles Warlow, MD, one of the study's principal investigators, presented the preliminary findings at the 12th International Joint Conference on Stroke and Cerebral Circulation in Tampa, Fla. His findings may have seemed like old news but they provided the first firm clinical evidence for a truism of basic research: low-dose aspirin is more effective than high-dose in preventing thrombogenesis. Warlow noted that clinical substantiation had been a long time in coming due to the difficulties inherent in recruiting a study