Plavix with acid-lowering drugs increase risk of heart attack recurrence

Toronto, January 29: Taking blood thinning drug, Plavix (Clopidogrel bisulfate) in combination with proton pump inhibitor drug increases the risk of having recurring heart attack.

This likelihood of heart attack recurrence is lesser when Plavix is taken alone, reports a study.

Dr. David N. Jurlink, head of the clinical pharmacology and toxicology division at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto said that this study was brought about by other findings that established, acid-lowering drugs decrease the effectiveness of Plavix.

The study, which was published on Wednesday in the “Canadian Medical Association Journal”, studied 13,636 patients ages 66 and above who were hospitalized due to heart attacks between 2002 and 2007, and were administered Plavix upon discharge.

Researchers found that out of those patients, 782 were admitted back to the hospital after only three months of discharge due o acute myocardial infarctiondefine or heart attack.

Jurlink explained these results saying, “We linked prescribing data with hospital data on these more than 13,000 patients prescribed Plavix after a heart attack and found that people on certain proton pump inhibitors had a 40 percent increased risk of a recurrence."

Plavix is commonly prescribed to heart attack patients to prevent the blood from getting too sticky and form clots, which can set off another heart attack. It is usually given together with antacids known as proton pump inhibitors. However, this study revealed that the combination of the said drugs may bring more harm than benefits to patients.

Dr. Christopher Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston explained, "The PPI drug blocks the conversion of clopidogrel to its active state, so it can't have the anticlotting activity it is supposed to. You're taking Plavix, but it's not having the anticlotting activity it should."

The proton pump inhibitors, which are found to shut off Plavix are: Omeprazole (Losec), Lanzoprazole (Prevacid) or Rabeprazole (Pariet).

Plavix is the second-best selling drug in the world with sales amounting to $7.3 billion in a year. In Canada, there are more than 2.8 million prescriptions, which were distributed from Canadian drugstores in 2008.

On the other hand, proton pump inhibitors are the most common prescribed drugs in the world. In Canada, more than 19 million prescriptions for the drug had been made in 2008.