Why is aspirin important for people with heart disease?

Why is aspirin important for people with heart disease?

Rose Marie Robertson, MD, FAHA, FACC, FESC (Chief Science Officer and Past President of the Board of American Heart Association) gives expert video advice on: How soon will I start to feel better after taking heart medication? and more...

Aspirin is important for people with heart disease because many of the problems that you have with coronary artery disease are caused by clots, and aspirin is a good way to prevent clots. When people come into the hospital with acute coronary syndromes, or heart attacks and unstable angina, old names for the same thing, it's almost always because they have a clot in a coronary artery. Sometimes it's completely blocking the artery, sometimes it's blocking it only partially, but in either case they're having symptoms because of that clot. And aspirin helps the body not form more clots in that area. And when we do procedures or give drugs to open up the artery to dissolve that clot, aspirin is critical to have there at that time to keep new clots from forming.