Originally published September 22 2005
Study suggests anti-blood-clot drug actually led to more deaths
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to the Associated Press, a study by scientists at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium found that the common practice of administering a clot-dissolving drug within hours of planned heart surgery could actually do more harm than good, as more patients died in the first month after surgery if they were given the drug.
The common practice of giving heart-attack patients a clot-busting drug within hours of planned angioplasty could be dangerous, an important new study suggests.
Many doctors give the clot-dissolver hoping that it will make the artery-widening operation more successful.
But research presented yesterday at the annual conference of the European Society of Cardiology found that more patients died in the month after the procedure if they were given the drug.
There are two main options for treating heart-attack victims -- a clot dissolving drug or angioplasty, where doctors thread a wire through the blood vessels to reach the blood clot that caused the heart attack.
Doctors then inflate a balloon to squash plaque against the wall of the artery and implant a tiny mesh tube at the site of a blockage to permanently prop the artery open.
Angioplasty is considered the more effective option, as long as it is done by experienced doctors in well-equipped hospitals.
Yet it has been unclear whether angioplasty would work better if the clot were dissolved before the procedure in cases where angioplasty cannot be performed immediately but can be done within three hours.
In the latest study, led by Dr. Frans Van de Werf of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, the strategies were compared in 1,667 patients in hospitals.
Half were given the clot-buster while en route to angioplasty, while the other half were given a fake pill.
The researchers found that 6 percent of patients who got the drug, TNKase, died within 30 days of the angioplasty, compared with only 3.8 percent of those in the angioplasty alone group.
Wijns, co-director of the Cardiovascular Center at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, said other studies testing different combinations of drugs surrounding angioplasty are eagerly awaited.
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