Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Listenstothesnow t1_j7wz3wl wrote

https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atrial-fibrillation/news/20160620/aspirin-often-wrongly-prescribed-for-atrial-fibrillation

Interesting read on Aspirin vs blood thinners - where AFib patients are concerned or hi risk stroke.

1

braindrain_94 t1_j7xnbkk wrote

So the two categories of “blood thinners” are anti platelets, and anticoagulants. Aspirin is in the former group, while drugs the article is talking about known as novel oral anticoagulants or NOACs include drugs like apixiban, dabigatran etc. in the latter.

If you have a fib something called a CHADS VAS score is used to determine your risk for a thromboembolic event and wether this outweighs bleed risk. If you have a CHADS VASC >2 in men or >3 in women then NOACs are superior to aspirin in preventing thromboembolism, although aspirin may still be used in addition to NOACs if you have say coronary artery disease.

However, at the moment standard of care for prevention of a recurrent stroke, is using dual anti plalet therapy (DAPT) clopidogrel + Asprin- see SAMPRIS trial.

So aspirin still can have its place but there’s a lot of nuance in deciding the medication regimen for someone.

3