CONX's AspirinWorks News - "Test Reveals Aspirin Tolerance" - KSN News - May 20, 2009
WICHITA, Kansas – Every day millions of people take an aspirin to help lower their risk of heart attack or stroke. But does it really work? A Wichita man has created a test that can tell if the aspirin therapy is really holding off a stroke.
‘Take two aspirin and call me in the morning’ is such a commonly used phrase it’s become more of a joke than a treatment. But it’s still good advise. For years doctors have been telling their patients to take an aspirin a day to reduce the threat of heart attack and stroke. Aspirin does this by making the blood less likely to clot.
“Sticky blood or sticky platelets in your blood make you at a higher risk for a blood clot which can then become a heart attack or a stroke,” said Gordon Ens, Clinical Affairs director of Corgenix.
Blood is made up of a bunch of different elements and different kinds of cells. There are red blood cells, white blood cells and cells called platelets. The platelets help the blood to clot so if you cut yourself you don’t keep bleeding. But the problem is for some people the platelets are too active and clots form where they shouldn’t, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Aspirin helps to lower the clotting factor of blood. But the amount of aspirin that works for one person may not be effective for someone else.
“It's not just a few people it's probably as high as 20 percent of us walking on the street are taking a dose of aspirin that is really not doing anything from a heart protective side,” Ens said.
So, the question for everyone taking an aspirin a day is –
“How much aspirin should you take how do you know the dose it right?” said Ens. “And the important thing is, if it's not your risk goes up.”
Doctors can test patients for their aspirin tolerance, but those tests are expensive.
“It's been available through labs like Mayo Medical and some of those far away places that delve into the unusual type testing,” said Edwin Harned, president of AMS Labs. “We've brought it into the realm of the routine and that's where it needs to be.”
Now, AMS Labs in Wichita is using a new kind of testing procedure known as “AspirinWorks.” It can quickly and cheaply determine a person’s individual tolerance for aspirin.
“The nice thing about this is that it's a urine test,” Ens said. “So it's very simple, it's a random urine test, you can go into your doctor, into a laboratory any time of the day.”
For about $50 AMS Labs can run the test and in a few days you and your doctor can have the results in your hands.
“You can say, “Dr. I have a number here that is less than 1500 units how am I being protected by my aspirin,” Harned said. “And he will likely say he will say, ‘well you are doing well, but if it's a higher number he may say, well we may need to adjust that dosage.’”
And that adjustment could save your life.
The AspirinWorks test is approved by the FDA and is available through your doctor or AMS Labs. For more information click on Weblinks.
See video at: ksn.com News - "Test Reveals Aspirin Tolerance" - KSN News - May 20, 2009 |
