Living with a Mechanical Heart Valve: Click.Tick.Thump. Love It!
Artificial Heart Valve Surgery & Living with Warfarin: UK Info Support Group
Apixaban to soon replace Warfarin ???
Heres a pretty interesting recent article I came across today re the new generation of drugs being developed to replace warfarin.. some interesting comments regardingthe cost of these versus warfarin which is incredibly cheap by comparison - and will health authorites (read NHS here in the UK) be able to afford the changeover..?
=======================================================
A drug being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Pfizer Inc. significantly outperformed warfarin in a major stroke-prevention study, boosting the drug's prospects in an emerging multibillion market for new blood thinners
Researchers said Sunday that the drug, called apixaban, reduced the risk of stroke in patients with a heartbeat irregularity called atrial fibrillation by 21% and lowered by 31% the incidence of bleeding, a serious side effect of warfarin. The twice-a-day pill also cut patients' risk of death by 11% over a follow-up of nearly two years.
The 18,201-patient study marked the first time that one of several agents in a race to replace warfarin proved superior to the half-century-old workhorse blood thinner on all three measures of efficacy, safety and improved survival.
read more here...
cheers
Graeme
Tags: anticoagulant, apixiban, blood, replace, thinners, warfarin
Views: 238
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Jason on -
Great news that so many new drugs seem to be coming out that may replace warfarin in the future. The only problem I have with new anticoagulant drugs at present is that there isn't an antidote to reverse the bleeding effects if there was a problem. With warfarin it's easy to inject vitamin k to stop any major bleeds. And lastly, the monitoring for warfarin seems like a pain but if managed well it seems to be very safe. I wonder if these new drugs are compared to well managed warfarin users or not? Overall I think and hope an alternative, improved and safer drug will be available soon but it's also great to know that warfarin is very safe if taken correctly whilst we wait for anything else.
It's great to be in a time where there are so many new medical advances.
-
Permalink Reply by Jason on
-
Also.. All new drugs appear to be very expensive compared to warfarin. However, warfarin is wry expensive to manage. Weekly, monthly testing must cost the NHS a fortune so hopefully any new drug expense will be balanced by the overall cost of warfarin monitoring.
Jason said:Great news that so many new drugs seem to be coming out that may replace warfarin in the future. The only problem I have with new anticoagulant drugs at present is that there isn't an antidote to reverse the bleeding effects if there was a problem. With warfarin it's easy to inject vitamin k to stop any major bleeds. And lastly, the monitoring for warfarin seems like a pain but if managed well it seems to be very safe. I wonder if these new drugs are compared to well managed warfarin users or not? Overall I think and hope an alternative, improved and safer drug will be available soon but it's also great to know that warfarin is very safe if taken correctly whilst we wait for anything else. It's great to be in a time where there are so many new medical advances.
-
Permalink Reply by James Cohen on -
The other problem, when I asked my consultant, during my annual checkup, is.....
All these drugs are being tested for AF patients, not those of us with MHV. To test with patients with MHV, would mean control groups etc, and since if the new drugs do not work with MHV, those testing the drugs might get clots (and we know what that means).
Therefore the parma companies are not really interested in taking the risk. I think we will be on Warfarin for many years to come (sadly)
-
Permalink Reply by Graeme on -
Hey James
fraid your correct. My friend is a surgeon who is now working for a big pharma (know thy enemy :-) ?) that is heavily involved with this.. the drugs r only at this stage for AF and NO mention of MHV testing yet.... plus they are a huge increase in costs over warfarin..The NHS is not keen at all to increase its costs in this area.. so we are going to be waiting a long time i think... :-(
motto for the day.. learn to
your warfarin ... :-) ...?
-
Permalink Reply by Tina opalisky on
-
I am always Leary of new drugs. I prefer to wait a good 5 yeArs ands see what side effects emerge.
OTHER IMPORTANT LINKS
OR - Use the QR Code above
© 2012 Created by Graeme.
