BMJ 2002;324:917 ( 13 April )

Letters

Antiplatelet therapy and atherosclerotic events

    Commentary is inaccurate
    Risks and patients' values need to be included in decision about aspirin for prevention of coronary heart disease

Commentary is inaccurate

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---We endorse the response of Baigent and others to Cleland's commentary on the Antithrombotic Trialists' antiplatelet meta-analysis.1-3 We would like to add some further comments in response to Cleland's article and the editorial in the same issue.4

Both suggest that the data in the meta-analysis were revised retrospectively. But the overview methods were planned prospectively. Differences between the data in trial publications and the dataset used for the meta-analysis occurred where trialists provided additional information on the numbers of patients originally randomised, or on unpublished or subsequently available outcomes for small numbers of patients. Minor differences between the current and previous antiplatelet overviews generally relate to additional, unpublished data from a few trials and do not affect any of the results or conclusions.

The claim by Reilly and FitzGerald that the absolute reduction in vascular events with antiplatelet treatment is smaller in acute ischaemic stroke than in other . . . [Full text of this article]
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Collaborative meta-analysis of randomised trials of antiplatelet therapy for prevention of death, myocardial infarction, and stroke in high risk patients
Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration
BMJ 2002 324: 71-86. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ