Aspirin resistance is associated with a high incidence of myonecrosis after non-urgent percutaneous coronary intervention despite clopidogrel pretreatment.

We sought to investigate the effect of aspirin resistance on the incidence of myonecrosis after non-urgent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) among patients pretreated with clopidogrel. Oral antiplatelet therapy using aspirin and a thienopyridine is the standard of care for preventing thrombotic complications of PCI. The effect of aspirin resistance on the outcomes of patients undergoing PCI is unknown. We used the Ultegra Rapid Platelet Function Assay-ASA (Accumetrics Inc., San Diego, California) to determine aspirin responsiveness of 151 patients scheduled for non-urgent PCI. All patients received a 300-mg loading dose of clopidogrel >12 h before and a 75-mg maintenance dose in the morning of the PCI. The incidence of myonecrosis was measured by creatine kinase-myocardial band (CK-MB) and by troponin I (TnI) elevations after PCI. A total of 29 (19.2%) patients were noted to be aspirin-resistant. There was a significantly higher incidence of female subjects in the aspirin-resistant versus aspirin-sensitive groups. The incidence of any CK-MB elevation was 51.7% in aspirin-resistant patients and 24.6% in aspirin-sensitive patients (p = 0.006). Elevation of TnI was observed in 65.5% of aspirin-resistant patients and 38.5% of aspirin-sensitive patients (p = 0.012). Multivariate analysis revealed aspirin resistance (odds ratio [OR] 2.9; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2 to 6.9; p = 0.015) and bifurcation lesion (OR 2.8; 95% CI 1.3 to 6.0; p = 0.007) to be independent predictors of CK-MB elevation after PCI. Despite adequate pretreatment with clopidogrel, patients with aspirin resistance as measured by a point-of-care assay have an increased risk of myonecrosis following non-urgent PCI.