But a bedside test makes it easier to spot “aspirin resistance.”

Aspirin, a mainstay of cardiovascular medications, failed to deliver benefits to almost one out of five patients in a recent study.

The findings add to evidence that a perplexing number of heart patients are “aspirin-resistant” — unable to capitalize on the protection against dangerous clotting that the drug confers on most people who take it. Balancing the bad news, the researchers successfully enlisted a simple bedside test that should make it easier from now on to check for aspirin resistance. And as the dimensions of the problem emerge, so do some tentative suggestions about what patients and doctors can do about it. …

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