New drug 'reduces mortality of heart patients'

The anti-clotting drug Rivaroxaban lowers risk of death, heart attack and stroke in acute coronary syndrome patients, according to a new study. The study presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, Sunday concluded that patients who took Rivaroxaban had a 16-percent reduced risk of cardiovascular death, stroke or heart attack compared to patients who didn't.

"Our findings are important because blocking the production of thrombin is an important new way to improve acute coronary syndrome patients' long-term risk of death, stroke and heart attack after being hospitalized with an acute coronary syndrome," said Michael Gibson, senior investigator of the TIMI Study Group at Harvard Medical School.

He explained that people with a heart attack or unstable angina make too much thrombin, an enzyme that forms clots. Therefore, researchers focused on ways to reduce the production of thrombin with Rivaroxaban, he said. More than 15,000 people hospitalized with a recent heart attack or unstable angina were analyzed in the course of the study. The study has also found that the risk of death, including all causes of death, was reduced more than 30 percent with the addition of Rivaroxaban.

Meanwhile, stent thrombosis was reduced by 31 percent in patients taking the drug compared to patients who didn't. However, a separate study focusing on the anti-clotting drug Vorapaxar has found that it failed to reduce patients' odds of experiencing adverse outcomes after treatment for unstable angina or a heart attack due to a partial artery blockage. Patients on Vorapaxar also had an increased risk of bleeding, the report said. The study was conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina.