Patients getting drug-eluting stents may be able to cut their post-procedure blood thinner regimen by as much as 75%, according to study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
Researchers compared patients who got post-DES dual antiplatelet therapy for 3 months with those that got the usual 12 months, finding that the shorter-duration drug regiment didn’t lead to worse outcomes.
Researchers stressed that the "optimal" amount of post-DES drug therapy is still something of a mystery.
"The current recommendation is for at least 12 months of dual antiplatelet therapy [typically aspirin and clopidogrel] after implantation of a drug-eluting stent," according to the study. "However, the optimal duration of dual antiplatelet therapy with specific types of drug-eluting stents remains unknown."
The new report, taken from a study of more than 3,100 patients treated at 33 sites in Brazil between April 2010 and March 2012, concluded that patients had no statistically significant differences in net adverse clinical and cerebral events, major adverse cardiac events or stent thrombosis.