Researchers Study Benefits Of Stroke Drugs
Posted on: Thursday, 28 August 2008, 07:40 CDT
Researchers are beginning to question if using a blood pressure medicine alolng with a widely used blood thinner does in fact benefit patients.
Two studies released on Wednesday call into question this common practice.
The first study shows that patients who received the blood pressure drug telmisartan were no less likely to have another stroke compared to those taking a placebo.
According to a second study, doctors discovered that aspirin combined with the anti-platelet drug dipyridamole worked no better than the standard anti-clotting treatment clopidogrel for decreasing the chance of stroke.
"We found no evidence that either of the two treatments was superior to the other in the prevention of recurrent stroke," said Ralph Sacco of the University of Miami, who led the study.
"Even though in science you always strive to find a superior treatment, in this case it gives us options for treatment depending on the patient and their response to the different medications."
Bristol-Myers Squibb sells clopidogrel under the brand name Plavix.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH produces dipyridamole under the brand name Persantine.
The New England Journal of Medicine published both studies which included 20,332 patients from 695 medical centers in 35 countries.
Every year, 5 million people die from stroke worldwide. Stroke survivors have an 8 percent chance of having another within one year.
More than eight percent of patients who take Plavix as a blood thinner, suffered another stroke versus 9 percent for the aspirin-dipyridamole combination.
However, the risk of major bleeding was similar in both groups.
"Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the two treatments in the risk of fatal or disabling strokes," said the authors, led by Ralph Sacco of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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