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Antiplatelet therapy

Aspirin for asymptomatic atherosclerosis?

The ankle–brachial index (ABI) can be used to assess the risk of cardiovascular events. The AAA trial aimed to determine whether low-dose aspirin was of net benefit among apparently healthy people with an ABI ≤0.95. The largely negative findings of this study raise important mechanistic and practical questions.

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Figure 1: Beneficial and adverse effects of aspirin allocation.

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Correspondence to Carlo Patrono.

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Competing interests

C. Patrono is a consultant for and is in the speaker's bureau of AstraZeneca, Bayer Schering Pharma, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough and Servier, is a consultant for Sanofi-Aventis, and received financial research support from Bayer Schering Pharma and Servier. C. Baigent declares no competing interests.

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Patrono, C., Baigent, C. Aspirin for asymptomatic atherosclerosis?. Nat Rev Cardiol 7, 306–307 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2010.65

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