75 mg Therapy with the PFA-1 00 Device in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease

A tool to identify vascular patients who receive antiplatelet therapy and to distinguish between responders and non-responders to antiplatelet therapy could be of clinical importance. The present observational study was designed to investigate whether the PFA- 1 00 ® device (Dade Behring) is suitable to detect long-term therapy of aspirin (100 mg/d) and/or clopidogrel (75 mg/d) in a cohort of patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). A total of 150 consecutive patients with PAD were studied; 34 patients were excluded from the study due to irregular intake of antiplatelet therapy or due to method limitations. Of the remaining 1 16 patients, 42 had no antiplatelet therapy, 47 had daily aspirin (100 mg) intake, 19 were administered clopi-dogrel 75 mg daily, and 10 received a medication with 100 mg aspirin plus clopidogrel 75 mg daily, all for at least 10 days. Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test with post hoc comparisons showed that collagen plus epinephrine (CEPI) closure times of the patient group receiving aspirin and the group receiving aspirin plus clopidogrel were similar (p> 0.05). In contrast, both patient groups exhibited prolonged CEPI values compared to patients without antiplatelet therapy and patients taking clopidogrel (p <0.001). Finally, both patients without antiplatelet therapy and patients with clopidogrel did not show marked differences with respect to thei