Transition From Ticagrelor to Clopidogrel Following Acute Coronary Syndrome: To Bolus or Not?
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2015-02-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
After a heart attack patients are routinely started on drugs to inhibit platelets. Ticagrelor
is a powerful anti-platelet drug with clinical benefits. However it must be discontinued in
some, because of increased risk of bleeding or intolerance. These patients need to be
transitioned to another agent, such as Clopidogrel. At present, there is no clinical
consensus on the optimal strategy for this switch. Some clinicians elect to give a bolus dose
of clopidogrel with 600mg, while others start directly with a 75mg daily dose, with no
evidence regarding the benefits or potential complications associated with each strategy. The
present proposal will evaluate the pharmacodynamics of 2 strategies with specialized platelet
function testing. We hypothesize that a bolus dose of clopidogrel during the switch will
confer better ischemic protection without increasing bleeding risk for patients undergoing a
switch in therapy.