Aspirin absorption from a feeding jejunostomy.

In a 67-year-old man who had a feeding jejunostomy because of dysphagia paralytica, the absorption of aspirin was measured in terms of serum salicylate concentration. A 975-mg dose of aspirin was given as a slurry in water directly into the feeding tube. Peak serum levels of salicylate were well correlated with those in previous studies of aspirin absorption by the oral route in a geriatric population. However, unexpectedly, the half-life of the drug in this patient was twice as long (7.5 hours) as that found in six previous studies (3.7 hours) of elderly patients given similar doses.