Sanofi blood thinner better than older drug: study
Last Updated: 2007-04-20 10:36:11 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Julie Steenhusen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paralyzed stroke patients, who are at risk of a second blood clot, are helped more by a blood thinner made by Sanofi-Aventis than an older, cheaper drug, according to a report published on Thursday.
Researchers compared Sanofi's Lovenox, a once-daily injection known generically as enoxaparin, with unfractionated heparin, a cheaper, twice-daily treatment derived from pig tissues.
"These patients are at much higher risk of getting a blood clot," said Dr. David Sherman, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center who has served as a consultant to France's Sanofi and led the study.
Doctors routinely treat stroke patients with blood thinners but few studies have been done to establish which treatment was most effective, Sherman said in a telephone interview.
The international study, published in Britain's Lancet medical journal, looked at 1,762 patients unable to walk unaided after an ischemic stroke -- a type of stroke in which a blood clot cuts off blood flow to the brain.
Sherman said patients with this type of stroke have about a 50 percent chance of getting a second blood clot in their legs, called deep vein thrombosis, or in the lungs, when it is called pulmonary embolism.
Half of the patients were given enoxaparin injections once a day and half got injections of unfractionated heparin twice a day. The researchers found that enoxaparin was 43 percent more effective at preventing blood clots in the leg and lungs than the older treatment.
The results were consistent regardless of the severity of the stroke. Rates of internal bleeding were similar for both drugs, while rates of external brain bleeding were slightly higher in the group taking enoxaparin.
Dangerous levels of bleeding or brain hemorrhages can be a problem with anti-coagulant treatments.
Doctors increasingly have turned to newer drugs like Lovenox, which are derived from smaller molecules and thought to be more stable and easier to use.
"We haven't had a large study that directly compares heparin and Lovenox," Sherman said, adding that based on the results, "I think that Lovenox will become the standard of care."
