Resistance to Antiplatelet Therapy

Abstract

Currently, 25 million people in the United States use aspirin as an antiplatelet agent to prevent cardiovascular events, whereas between 1998 and 2004, use of clopidogrel had increased over 7 times and the use of clopidogrel with aspirin had increased 16 times in the United States. The “nonresponsiveness or resistance” to antiplatelet therapy is becoming a major concern. Therefore, numerous scientific meetings and hundreds of clinical publications have focused on this phenomenon. However, as this chapter will discuss, the mechanism of antiplatelet resistance and the treatment strategies to address these concerns are still unclear.