Summary
Antiplatelet therapy has demonstrated significant clinical benefit in the treatment
of acute coronary syndrome. However, as with any treatment strategy it has been unable
to prevent all cardiovascular events. This is far from surprising when considering
the complexity of arterial thrombosis and more specifically platelet physiology. This
lack of treatment success has provoked the introduction of various diagnostic tests
and testing platforms with the intent of guiding and optimizing clinical treatment.
Such tests have resulted in the generation of clinical data that suggest suboptimal
response to antiplatelet agents such as aspirin and clopidogrel.
In the case of both aspirin and clopidogrel, this suboptimal response has been termed
resistance. Drug resistance would imply a lack of pharmacological response that has
not been specifically investigated in many of the clinical studies performed to date.
Rather, the term resistance has been used to describe various facets of platelet activation
and aggregation relative to the testing method. Many of these measured parameters
are not addressed in the therapeutic intent of the antiplatelet drug in question.
Keywords
Aspirin - clopidogrel - resistance - monitoring
