Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations of 1,062 people found a 70 percent higher incidence of "microbleeds" among those taking aspirin or carbasalate calcium, a close chemical relative of aspirin, than among those not taking such anti-clotting drugs, according to an April 13 online report in the Archives of Neurology from physicians at Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam. The research was expected to be published in the June print issue of the journal.
No increased incidence of microbleeds was seen in people taking clot-preventing drugs that act in different ways, such as heparin, the researchers noted.
The report adds information to a still unfolding medical story about the causes and effects of microbleeds, said Dr. Steven M. Greenberg, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"It is not clear at this point what significance we can attach to seeing microbleeds," Greenberg said. Some studies have shown an association between microbleeds and an increased risk of major bleeding events in the brain, but those studies have included only small numbers of people, he added.
There also is some data indicating that microbleeds are associated with reduced brain function, but their role is unclear, because "they tend to travel together with other kinds of small-vessel brain disease," Greenberg said.
The most that can be said is that the study "is a little bit of a warning for us to think about antiplatelet drug therapy as a risk for hemorrhagic damage to the brain," he said.
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