Clopidogrel Reduces Death and Recurrent Heart Attack By Preventing Arteries from Closing after Heart Attack
Boston and Dallas, TX – In efforts to further understand the impact of “clot busters” on helping prevent recurrent heart attacks, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2005, presented new findings that indicate that clopidogrel’s major benefit in patients treated with clot busting medications is by keeping arteries open after a heart attack thus preventing a recurrent heart attack and even death.
BWH cardiologist Benjamin Scirica, MD, in a presentation on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 10:00 am EST, expanded upon CLARITY-TIMI 28 (Clopidogrel as Adjunctive Reperfusion Therapy – Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction) trial results, which, earlier this year demonstrated that clopidogrel helped open blocked arteries and decreased the odds of a second heart attack by 31 percent.
Scirica and his colleagues, in their analysis, added more information to our understanding of how clopidogrel benefits patients after a heart attack. Specifically, patients who were given clopidogrel when they first arrived at the hospital with a heart attack and then demonstrated early reperfusion – or restored blood flow in the blocked artery of the heart – as demonstrated by an electrocardiogram, experienced better outcomes, than those who had similar early signs of reperfusion but were treated with placebo. Researchers believe in these cases that the initial clot busting medications dissolve the clot within minutes after treatment. Clopidogrel, when given at the same time, then helped to keep the blocked arteries open in the days after the event, thereby preventing repeat heart attacks reducing the risk of dying. For those who did not experience early reperfusion, Scirica recommends an immediate angiography to detect more extensive blockages – the type of blockage that a clot buster cannot completely dissolve.
The CLARITY-TIMI 28 trial included 3,491 men and women, 75 years or younger, at 319 sites in 23 countries. The primary endpoint of the trial was a composite of an occluded (clogged) infarct-related artery or death or second heart attack prior to coronary angiography. All patients in the trial experienced the onset of their heart attack within the 12 hours preceding treatment and received standard clot-busting treatment and aspirin to open the clogged artery. They then received either clopidogrel (300 mg loading dose, then 75 mg once daily) or placebo up to the time of angiography.
“Clopidogrel is a powerful tool in helping physicians to save lives after a heart attack,” said Scirica, who is also an instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Clopidogrel helps maintain blood flow in the critical days after an event which contributes to better survival after a heart attack.”
The trial was sponsored by the pharmaceutical partnership of Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Please contact BWH Media Relations for more information at (617) 534-1600 or BWHMediaRelations@partners.org.
BWH is a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare System, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832 and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, dedication to educating and training health care professionals, and strength in biomedical research. With $370M in funding and more than 500 research scientists, BWH is an acclaimed leader in clinical, basic and epidemiological investigation - including the landmark Nurses Health Study, Physicians Health Studies, and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
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