Adding clopidogrel to aspirin is beneficial in reducing heart attack

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A large study of patients after heart attack shows that the drug clopidogrel can save lives if it is added to aspirin to prevent further heart attack and stroke.
Aspirin and clopidogrel are both drugs which thin the blood. The use of aspirin in this way to prevent heart attack and stroke is well known. Now researchers in China and the University of Oxford, England, report on how the addition of clopidogrel boosts the benefits of aspirin.

The study, covering nearly 46,000 patients is the largest ever conducted in China and the second largest in the world of emergency heart attack. Adding clopidogrel to aspirin cuts the risk of death by a further seven per cent and of heart attack or stroke by about ten per cent. In another part of the study, the benefits of treating with metoprolol, a beta blocker, were found to be cancelled out by its drawbacks. Metoprolol does reduce the risk of repeat heart attacks and ventricular fibrillation. But it also increases the risk of cardiac shock.

Source
American College of Cardiology conference 9th March 2005