Drug Could Save Thousands of Heart Attack Patients
Reported November 4, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — New research shows adding the drug clopidogrel to aspirin for the emergency treatment of heart attack could save thousands of lives every year.
Each year, nearly 1.5 million people have a heart attack in the United States. About 500,000 of those people will die from it. Worldwide, about 10 million people have a heart attack every year.
Researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK recruited nearly 46,000 people with the onset of heart attack from 1,250 hospitals in China. Patients were randomized to receive a daily dose of 75 milligrams of clopidogrel (Plavix) or a placebo along with aspirin and other standard treatments. Patients stayed on the treatment until they were discharged from the hospital or until they had been there for four weeks.
When compared to the placebo, results of the study show clopidogrel lowered the risk of death, repeat heart attacks and stroke by 9 percent. It resulted in a 7- percent reduction in deaths alone. Researchers also found the drug caused a 14- percent reduction in repeat heart attacks during the treatment period.
Researchers say the drug was safe and did not cause an increase in life-threatening bleeding. Zhengming Chen, M.D., from the University of Oxford, says, “If early clopidogrel therapy was given in hospital to just 1 million of the 10 million patients who have a heart attack every year then it would prevent about 5,000 deaths and 5,000 non-fatal reinfarctions and strokes.”
Researchers believe continued use of the drug could have further benefits for the patients after they’re discharged, but the benefits and harms of long-term therapy are still under study.
SOURCE: The Lancet, 2005;366:1607-1631
