Aspirin is a drug that has been used for many years - it is well-understood, effective, inexpensive and widely available.

There are many disparities in health care, and this analysis has uncovered another area of concern. It is crucial that we implement or enhance systems that help protect against these disparities and improve the quality of care for all patients.

While the medical community is very proficient at treating complex illnesses like heart disease, there still remain disparities in the delivery of that care that needs to be addressed.

Our findings are particularly noteworthy in that aspirin's main beneficial effects appeared to be the reduction in the risk of stroke for women and reduction in the risk of heart attacks for men. While our analysis showed that aspirin may have different effects in men and women, the relatively small number of heart attacks among women and strokes among men suggest that more research is needed to better understand any differences in cardiovascular responses to aspirin.

This is good news because many of the past studies of the effect of aspirin in preventing cardiovascular events looked only at men, so physicians were reluctant to prescribe aspirin for women because there was little data.

For this reason, while we believe that many more people could benefit from taking aspirin, it is important for patients and their physicians to discuss the issue and weigh the benefits and potential drawbacks to this therapy.