At present, victims of heart attacks are either given an angioplasty, wherein a balloon catheter is inserted into the vein and used to open the heart artery, or are given a clot-dissolving agent such as TNKase. In the study, led by the Catholic University of Leuven’s Dr Frans Van de Werf, a combination of the two procedures was shown to lead to a higher incident of death in the 30 days after treatment.
Some doctors believe that it is desirable to immediately administer a clot-dissolving drug if a patient is forced to wait for angioplasty treatment, perhaps while they are transferred to a hospital more equipped to perform the procedure. However, the new study now raises questions over the wisdom of this approach.
In the study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Stockholm, a 6% death rate was observed in those patients who received a combination of TNKase and angioplasty procedure, compared with a 3.8 % mortality rate in patients who received only angioplasty.