Anticoagulant gives moderate but useful benefit after heart attack

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

The new anticoagulant, reviparin, reduces the rate of death, heart attack or stroke after a heart attack.
It is known that a number of drugs or treatments can improve the outcome for patients after a heart attack. Now a team at Hamilton General Hospital and McMaster University, Canada, reveal benefit from a new drug too. Reviparin is an anticoagulant, which prevents the blood from clotting.

A group of over 15,000 patients received either reviparin or placebo after a heart attack and the combined outcome of a further heart attack, stroke or death was measured. At seven days, those on reviparin had a 13 per cent reduced risk of one of these events compared to placebo. The benefit persisted up to 30 days.

Further analysis revealed that the results were best when reviparin was given early - two hours after symptom onset. The benefit may be modest but there are other advantages to this new drug. It can be given subcutaneously rather than as an infusion and it is rather less expensive than some other drugs in its class. The researchers believe it could be used to help people in both developed and less developed countries.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association 26th January 2005 Volume 293 pages 427-436