PMC

Aspirin side effects: (A) Overall incidence of side effects from aspirin seen in the Sturge-Weber syndrome cohort. (B) Frequency of each reported side effect.

Chemical structures of salicylate (a) and aspirin (b) (ACD/ChemSketch 5.0). Both compounds are benzoic acid derivatives. Aspirin is quickly hydrolyzed to salicylate in an aqueous environment. These amphiphilic molecules interact with membranes, potentially leading to serious side effects.

Analysis of side effects. (A) Overview of the different categories of drugs. Drugs are grouped by their drug class. The number of shared and unique drugs and side effects is shown for each class. (Some drugs, e.g., aspirin, have more than one anatomical class assigned to them.) (B) Using Fisher's exact test, over-represented side effects were determined for each category. A few over-represented medical concepts might describe indications for the drugs (e.g., ‘cancer') that were not caught by our filtering mechanisms (see Materials and methods). These concepts are marked with an asterisk. (C) Associations between drug classes and anatomical classes of side effects are shown (see ). Positive values indicate an association between a drug and an anatomical class. Negative values represent an under-representation, for example, drugs indicated for disorders of the blood system cause few sensory side effects.

The absolute risk of vascular complications determines the magnitude of benefit from aspirin. Reproduced from: Patrono C, et al. Platelet-active drugs. The relationship among dose effectiveness and side effects. Chest 1998;114:470S–88S9822058, with permission.