Abstract

Bleeding times were measured on 100 consecutive patients who had taken aspirin within 1 week. The patients were categorized in two ways: 1) low-dose (≤650 mg), medium-dose (651-3250 mg), and high-dose (>3250 mg), and 2) short (≤1 week), intermediate (>1 week-1 month), and prolonged (>1 month) duration of intake. The average bleeding time and the incidence of prolonged bleeding time were not statistically different between the three groups in each category. The bleeding time of four patients, initially prolonged, returned to normal after 1 to 2 days. Two hundred forty six epidural and spinal blocks performed on 87 patients (eight patients who had prolonged bleeding time up to 10.5 minutes had 22 epidural and spinal blocks) did not result in signs or symptoms of epidural hematoma.