Study results reported by the European Society of Cardiology and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine compared an investigational drug, apixaban, with warfarin in a double-blind randomized trial.
The results found that atrial fibrillation patients treated with apixaban, a direct factor Xa inhibitor, suffered fewer strokes or embolic events than warfarin-treated patients. The patients taking apixaban had fewer major bleeding events and fewer hemorrhagic strokes and were less likely to die during almost two years of treatment.
According to the report, for every 1,000 patients treated for 1.8 years, apixaban would prevent six strokes, 15 major bleeds and eight deaths. Elliott Antman, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a spokesperson for the American Heart Association, called the results “not only a home run, but an out-of-the-pack home run.”
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