he purpose of the study is to better understand the mechanism for failure of daily aspirin administration to prevent cardiovascular events in some at risk individuals. We seek to describe the effect of chronic aspirin administration at varying doses on platelet aggregation. This will help to define mechanisms for aspirin failure and to pursue possible alternative therapies in patients who fail to respond to aspirin therapy.
We hypothesize that (1) inhibition by aspirin (ASA) of ex vivo-induced platelet aggregation varies in a predictable time and dose dependent manner, (2) thromboxane and prostacyclin production is inhibited by ASA in a dose-dependent manner and remains relatively constant over time once maximal inhibition has occurred, and (3) granule secretion by platelets during induced aggregation is inhibited by aspirin acutely but this effect does not persist during chronic administration at high doses.
