Stroke Prevention — Insights from Incoherence

If clinical trials were sporting contests, then it would be fair to say that low-dose aspirin plus extended-release dipyridamole (Aggrenox) was the clear favorite against clopidogrel going into the Prevention Regimen for Effectively Avoiding Second Strokes (PRoFESS) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00153062). The trial, reported on in this issue of the Journal by Sacco et al.,¹ tested these two antiplatelet agents for secondary stroke prevention in their first head-to-head contest.In two previous large randomized clinical trials enrolling patients after stroke (the European Stroke Prevention Study 2 [ESPS2]² and the European/Australasian Stroke Prevention in Reversible Ischemia Trial³ [ESPRIT, NCT00161070]), low-dose aspirin . . .