Aspirin in daily doses of 1,300 mg is "safe and effective for reducing the risk of recurrent transient ischemic attacks in men who have had transient ischemia of the brain due to fibrin platelet emboli."
With that pronouncement, a special advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration has recommended that the official indications for aspirin be expanded to include therapy for certain types of transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) in men only.
The recommendation of the FDA's Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee, if accepted by the agency, "may substantially alter the way medicine is practiced," according to Ron Kartzinel, MD, director of the FDA's Division of Neuropharmacological Drugs.
The action may also represent the first official step in what some believe may become a rush to confirm new uses for the 80-year-old drug, now known to inhibit synthesis of certain prostaglandins.
"The committee was very careful," says