Does aspirin treatment influence vascular resistance and fluid filtration in patients with congestive heart failure

Sir—During recent years the beneficial effect of continued use of aspirin after acute myocardial infarction in patients with congestive heart failure has been questioned.1 This is based on retrospective findings in some large clinical trials showing a reduced beneficial effect on mortality of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in patients treated with aspirin.2 3 Moreover, improvement in central haemodynamic indices and pulmonary diffusion capacity in patients with congestive heart failure during short term ACE inhibitor treatment was impaired when aspirin was added,4-6 though there was no interaction between antiplatelet treatment with ticlopidine and ACE inhibitor treatment.6 We retrospectively analysed data from a …