Aspirin and Acetaminophen: A Comparative View of Their Antipyretic and Analgesic Activity

Aspirin and acetaminophen have excellent and essentially similar antipyretic activity. For the child, lowering of temperature will be indicated for excessively high temperature and when there is a history of febrile seizures. Specific clinical contraindications will often dictate the selection of one drug over the other. Aspirin has some advantage over acetaminophen for analgesia. The need for either drug for analgesia in the pediatric patient, however, will be infrequent; when required, a drug with greater analgesic activity than either aspirin or acetaminophen may be indicated.