Clopidogrel drug may be less beneficial for diabetic patients after MI

A new study has revealed that treating diabetics with the antiplatelet medicine Clopidogrel following a heart attack does not reduce their risk of suffering another attack or death compared to patients without diabetes.
The research, published in the Sept. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Associatio, was carried out Charlotte Andersso, MD, PhD, and colleagues from Gentofte Hospital in Hellerup, Denmark. It involved analysis of data on nearly 59,000 Danish patients who were hospitalised after suffering a heart attack (myocardial infarction or MI).
Of the 58,851 hospital patients, the researchers found that 1,790 patients with diabetes and 7,931 patients without diabetes had recurrent MI. Of these, 1,225 with diabetes and 5,377 without the disease died.
Of the patients with diabetes treated with clopidogrel (brand name Plavix), the researchers found that the drug was less effective in preventing a second heart attack compared with non-diabetics .
They also noted that cardiovascular mortality was not significantly reduced and all-cause mortality was less decreased in diabetes patients who received clopidogrel therapy versus those without the disease .
“Among patients with diabetes compared with patients without diabetes, the use of conventional clopidogrel treatment after MI was associated with lower reduction in the risk of all-cause death and cardiovascular death,” the authors said.
“Available data raise a possibility that patients with diabetes may benefit from a more potent platelet inhibitor strategy to achieve a relative risk reduction similar to patients without diabetes.”