Study shows clopidogrel rebound risk

07 Feb 08

The study followed patients discharged from hospital for acute coronary syndrome and found they had almost double the risk of dying or having an acute myocardial infarction within the first 90 days of ceasing clopidogrel treatment.

Dr Kathryn Griffith, a GP in York and a board member of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, said this evidence supported monitoring high-risk patients closely before taking them off clopidogrel.

‘If a patient has not been genuinely stable while they have been on clopidogrel, then it is difficult to justify stopping it,’ she said.

The research appears in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.