Aspirin may not be the best choice for stroke prevention
Prepared by: Dr. Yasser bin Muhammad Al-Behairi
Doctors advise against prescribing aspirin on a regular basis in some cases of heart disease that may increase the risk of stroke. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set guidelines for prescribing alternative medications to aspirin for patients who suffer from heart rhythm disorders, known medically as “atrial fibrillation.”
The draft recommendations, which the institute is scheduled to finish preparing this month, stated that warfarin and other anticoagulants are the best for this condition. This is expected to affect hundreds of thousands of patients. But experts, according to the BBC website, say that most doctors prescribe drugs other than aspirin. Atrial fibrillation is considered one of the most common heart problems, and nearly 800,000 people suffer from it in Britain alone, approximately one in every 100 Britons. In the case of atrial fibrillation, the heart cannot work as efficiently as it can, causing blood clots, which increases the risk of stroke as a result. Aspirin has been used for years as a medical solution that helps protect patients from strokes, but there is increasing evidence indicating that the benefits of aspirin in this regard are negligible when compared to other treatments. These guidelines provided by the Institute to doctors in England and Wales seem to agree that daily use of aspirin is still beneficial in some cases, but in most cases other medications should be prescribed in addition to or in place of aspirin. The institute believes, according to this medical advice, that it is better to rely mostly on warfarin or other new types.
