Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Many of the researchers have consulted for the companies. One study, involving about 46,000 heart attack patients in China, found that the risk of death, stroke or another heart attack was 9 percent lower in patients given Plavix along with standard anti-clotting drugs _ aspirin, heparin and the clot-busters TPA or streptokinase _ than in those who got the standard drugs alone. The risks of bleeding and other serious side effects were no different. «The treatment was very effective and very safe,» said Dr. Zhengming Chen of the University of Oxford in England, who led the Chinese study. Two weeks of Plavix pills cost $50 (¤37) to $100 (¤74) per patient. For every million heart attack patients treated this way, 5,000 deaths and another 5,000 major heart problems or strokes would be prevented, Chen said. The other study was led by Dr. Marc Sabatine of Harvard and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and involved 3,491 heart attack patients in Europe given standard drugs with or without Plavix. The risk of death, another heart attack or artery reclogging was 21.7 percent in those on standard drugs alone but only 15 percent among those given Plavix. This amounted to a 36 percent lower risk for those taking Plavix. Doctors also found that Plavix appeared to be safe even for patients about to have heart bypass surgery. This is good news because surgeons are reluctant to operate on people who recently received the drug, for fear it will cause excessive bleeding. --More 2313 Local Time 2013 GMT
