Enoxaparin better than unfractionated heparin as adjunct therapy for heart attacks

A simple-to-use strategy that prevents blood clots in patients who have suffered a heart attack markedly reduces the risk of repeat heart attack or death when compared to an older, more widely used blood thinning strategy, according to a large international study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 55th Annual Scientific Session and the inaugural Innovation in Intervention: The i2 Summit 2006 in Atlanta.

The ExTRACT-TIMI 25 trial compared a strategy using enoxaparin, a type of low-molecular-weight heparin, to a strategy using unfractionated heparin as adjunctive therapy in patients whose primary treatment for heart attack, or myocardial infarction (MI), was clot-busting medication, known as fibrinolytic drugs. Both unfractionated heparin and enoxaparin inhibit thrombin, a blood protein that plays a key role in the formation of new blood clots. However, unfractionated heparin is delivered by intravenous infusion, while enoxaparin can simply be injected under the skin. Enoxaparin also appears to have more powerful anti-clotting effects by more effectively blocking the clotting mechanism at an earlier stage than unfractionated heparin.

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