SATURDAY, March 29 (HealthDay News) -- Treatment with a new
antiplatelet drug called prasugrel may be better than standard treatment
in protecting against blocked blood flow in patients with at least one
coronary stent, according to a new international study.
Coronary stents are used to treat narrowing of arteries that supply
blood to the heart. But stents can result in blood clots that can block
the stented artery, a condition called stent thrombosis. To prevent this,
patients take antiplatelet medications or anticoagulants after they%26#39;ve had
stents inserted in arteries. The standard treatment uses the drug
clopidogrel (Plavix) with aspirin.
Both prasugrel (Effient) and clopidogrel belong to a group of compounds
called thienopyridines.
In this study, Dr. Stephen Wiviott, of Brigham and Women%26#39;s Hospital and
Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues analyzed data on 12,844
patients with different types of heart stents who were treated with either
prasugrel plus aspirin or clopidogrel plus aspirin.
They found that patients who received intensive antiplatelet therapy
with prasugrel had fewer "ischemic events," including stent thrombosis,
than patients who received clopidogrel. The type of stent was not a
factor.
"These data highlight the importance of aggressive antiplatelet therapy
to reduce ischemic events in patients with acute coronary syndromes
undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention," the study authors
concluded. "When balancing risks and benefits of strategies to prevent
ischemic events, consideration should be given to patient characteristics,
including risk of bleeding and ischemic events as well as stent and
procedural characteristics."
The study was to be presented Saturday at the American College of
Cardiology annual meeting, in Chicago, and appears online in The
Lancet. It will be published in an upcoming print issue of the
journal.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about stents.
没有评论:
发表评论