Drug Improves Heart-Attack Survival

One trial in a new study involving nearly 50,000 patients has shown that the inexpensive anti-platelet agent clopidogrel added to standard therapy reduced the odds of heart attack patients having another occluded artery or a second heart attack by 36% after one week of hospitalization.

Patients in the study had acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). After 30 days, clopidogrel reduced the odds of cardiovascular death, recurrent infarction, and recurrent ischemia leading to urgent revascularization by 20%. The results were consistent regardless of gender, the standard therapy received (type of fibrinolytic or type of heparin), or the location of the heart attack.

Another trial in the same study found that treating heart attack patients with clopidogrel in addition to standard therapy reduced the relative risk of death by 7% and the risk of a recurrent heart attack by 9%. "The study also showed that there was no significant increase in the risk of fetal or transfused bleeding associated with clopidogrel therapy,” said Zheng Ming Chen, M.D., University of Oxford (UK), who presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando (FL, USA) in March 2005.

Other researchers who took part in the study were from Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA), Brigham and Women's Hospital (also in Boston), and Fuwai Hospital and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (both in Beijing, China). The rates of major bleeding and intracranial hemorrhage were similar in both treatment groups. Clopidogrel (clopidogrel bisulfate) is marketed worldwide by Sanofi-Aventis (Paris, France) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (Princeton, NJ, USA) as Plavix and Iscover.




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