Research Highlights

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  • Clinical medicine

Published online: 4 June 2008 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2008.128

Strokes: An alternative to aspirin

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2008) istockphoto.com

Strokes are the second leading cause of death in China, with about 7 million people affected countrywide. The majority of stroke patients take aspirin to prevent a stroke from recurring, but the drug has been known to increase the risk of cerebral haemorrhage and other bleeding events in Chinese people. Now clinical data by Yining Huang at Peking University in Beijing and co-workers¹ shows cilostazol, a stroke-preventing drug that works through a different mechanism to aspirin, is a safer alternative for Chinese stroke patients.

Huang and co-workers recruited 720 patients with a mean age of just over 60 years old, who had had a stroke in the past six months, to a double-blind trial. Half of the patients were randomly assigned to receive cilostazol, and the other half aspirin. Patients in both groups took the medication for 12–18 months, and any recurrence of a stroke during the trial period was noted. All patients also had a brain scan using magnetic resonance imaging at the beginning and the end of the study.

The researchers found no significant difference in the rate of recurrence between stroke patients who took either cilostazol or aspirin. However, the cilostazol group had much lower rates of cerebral haemorrhage and haematomas than the aspirin group. The finding suggests that cilostazol might be a better option for Chinese stroke patients.

The researchers anticipate that a larger clinical trial will confirm the efficacy and safety of cilostazol.

The authors of this work are from:
First Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China; Affiliated Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China; First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, China; Affiliated Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China; Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical College, Guangzhou, China; Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; First Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China; Beijing Military Branch General Hospital, Beijing, China; Second Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; People's Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China; Third Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China; First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, China.

Reference

1. Huang, Y. et al. Cilostazol as an alternative to aspirin after ischaemic stroke: A randomised, double-blind, pilot study. Lancet Neurol. 7, 494–499 (2008). | Article | PubMed |