Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Dabigatran, New Blood Thinner Linked To Higher Heart Attack Risk


In continuation of my update on Dabigatran...

Researchers lead by Dr.Ken Uchino from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio looked at seven trials involving Pradaxa (Dabigatran) that included more than 30,000 patients. This process, called a meta-analysis, uses data from published clinical trials to tease out a pattern that might not show up in a single study. Researchers found Pradaxa was associated with an increased risk of heart attack or acute coronary syndrome (heart attack or angina), compared with two other commonly used blood thinners, warfarin (Coumadin, Jantoven) and enoxaparin (Lovenox).

As per the claim by the researchers,  those taking Pradaxa, 1.19 percent had a heart attack or suffered from acute coronary syndrome compared with 0.79 percent of those taking either of the other drugs, they noted. Although there was a 33 percent increase in relative risk for a heart attack among those taking Pradaxa, the absolute increased risk -- that is, the added risk for any one individual of having a heart attack if on Pradaxa -- was 0.27 percent, researchers said.

Pradaxa was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in October 2010 for people with a common heart rhythm problem called atrial fibrillation. People with atrial fibrillation are at a higher risk for stroke and are often prescribed medication to prevent clotting....

Ref : http://my.clevelandclinic.org/cerebrovascular_center/medical_professionals/clinical_trials.aspx

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