A new drug reduces the risk for heart patients

A new drug to prevent blood clots in heart patients who reduced their ability to die, over 20 percent compared to standard therapy, new research says.

The researchers followed 18,624 patients worldwide in 2006 to 2008. Approximately half of patients treated with clopidogrel, also known as Plavix, while the other half took an experimental drug called ticagrelor or Brilinta, AstraZeneca plc.

The Brilinta a 4.5 percent probability of death was compared to a risk of 5.9 per cent of deaths in patients with Plavix, the World's second best selling drug from Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Doctors also found Brilinta was safer for patients because they are less likely to have bleeding problems, a known side effect of Plavix. Ticagrelor had its own negative effects, including respiratory and cardiac arrhythmia.

The study results were announced Sunday, the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona, and also published online in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research was funded by AstraZeneca.

For years, the fight against Standard-clotting treatment Plavix was when another drug, prasugrel, which Eli Lilly was available earlier this year. Heart patients often avoid, such as blood thinner Plavix to serious problems in the future.

Brilinta is not yet on the market. When regulators to approve drugs, finally, some experts expect it will be a bestseller. "This will be the new standard of care to be," said Dr. Douglas Weaver, outgoing president of the American College of Cardiology.

"It is more efficient (as Plavix) and seems to be even safer," says Weaver, who did not cooperate on the study.

Noch immer, in der Regel Arzneimittelbehörden Jahre in Anspruch nehmen, um neue Medikamente zu genehmigen.

Not everyone was so optimistic Brilinta able to dislodge the anticoagulants available.

"That means we have a third option, and the therapist must be a very thoughtful decision about which of the three options is best for a particular patient to do," said Dr. Clyde Yancy, medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas and president of the American Heart Association.

Yancy said more information on how the drug works, understand the side effects required. "We do not want to change things overnight," he said. "(But) this is another option."