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December 5, 2008
Latest Canadian Trasylol Study: Alternative Medications are Safer and Cheaper
A study out of Canada that casts more doubt on the safety of a drug commonly used in major heart surgery won’t affect doctors in the United States, where the drug has been taken off the market.
The newest study compared aprotinin, sold under the brand name Trasylol, a drug commonly used to control blood loss and transfusions during cardiac surgery, with lysine analogues other drugs that control bleeding. The results of the study will be published next month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
A Canada health expert advisory panel met Wednesday to decide on the future use of aprotinin. The study was released in advance of the meeting.
Trasylol has been available since 1987 and widely used, but recently has become a controversial drug.
A landmark clinical trial comparing aprotinin to alternatives was suspended last October when it was found that the rate of deaths among people who were given the drug was higher than that of people who got the older, cheaper drugs.
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A team of Canadian researchers conducted the newest analysis of clinical trials of the drug and concluded that cheaper, safer alternatives work nearly as well and should be recommended. “Either tranexamic acid or epsilon aminocaproic acid should be recommended to prevent bleeding after cardiac surgery,” the team wrote.
While Trasylol was heavily marketed for years, it is not used in the United States, said Dr. Anil Deshpande, program director for the Cardiothoracic Surgery Services at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown.
“It is useful during surgery, but it has some severe side effects,” he added. Among them are strokes and heart attacks following surgery.
Previously at St. Mary, Trasylol was used only for complicated open heart surgeries, Deshpande added. “Fortunately, we haven’t seen any problems,” he said.
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