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Cardiologists want safer antiplatelet strategies to reduce cardiac events in acs patients, new "cardiovascular unmet medical needs" survey finds

 
 

Reduced Cardiovascular Events Without Major Bleeding Risk in a New Oral Antiplatelet Would be a "Therapeutic Advance," Say Almost 100 Percent of Those Surveyed

Atherothrombosis continues to be the leading cause of death worldwide. Even with current antithrombotic treatments, such as antiplatelets, anticoagulants and thrombolytics, there continues to be a significant incidence of ischemic events. Moreover, clinicians need to balance the benefits of reduced cardiac events with the risks of current treatments, such as major bleeding.To assess treatment attitudes among cardiologists today, Harris Interactive, a global leader in custom market research, conducted an online survey among 300 cardiologists. The survey was commissioned by Schering-Plough Corporation.TheHeart.org carries the survey results here exclusively.


Methodology
The "Cardiovascular Unmet Medical Needs" Survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive, commissioned by Schering Corporation sponsorship between March 10 - 15, 2009 among 300 cardiologists, including 100 interventional and 200 non-interventional cardiologists. In order to be included in the study, cardiologists were required to practice in the US; participate in a self-report cardiology specialty; treat at least 20 patients per week; treat at least 5 acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients per week with unstable angina, ST-elevated myocardial infarction, or non-ST-elevated myocardial infarction; and write at least 5 oral antiplatelet prescriptions per month for ACS patients with unstable angina and non-ST-elevated myocardial infarction. In addition, if a cardiologist spent at least 41% of his or her time performing procedures in a cath lab, he or she was classified as an interventional cardiologist. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.

Cardiologists were offered eight questions for response, of which seven questions had a range of possible responses on a scale of "1" to "5" where "1" is "strongly disagree" and "5" is "strongly agree" and one question had a 'yes' or 'no' response.
 

Key Findings
Overall percentages are provided for each question. Responses were consistent among both interventional and non-interventional cardiologists.


78 percent of surveyed cardiologists agree (either "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree") that "oral antiplatelet therapy is the standard of care in treating ACS patients,” and

79 percent agree that "for ACS patients, cardiologists use a regimen of oral antiplatelet therapy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events."

 


However,

99 percent believe that some of their patients still "experience cardiovascular events when taking oral antiplatelet therapy," and

88 percent agree that "some ACS patients on oral antiplatelet therapy who experience further cardiovascular events do so as a result of low- or non-response to therapy.”

   

86 percent
of responders indicated that "bleeding is one of the disadvantages of oral antiplatelet therapy in the treatment of ACS.”

 

With respect to the availability of a new oral antiplatelet therapy (all other factors being equal):


88 percent
"would choose an oral antiplatelet therapy that does not have incremental major bleeding risk over one that does."

 


96 percent
believe that "if a novel oral antiplatelet therapy were demonstrated to reduce cardiovascular events without incremental major bleeding risk, cardiologists would consider that to be a therapeutic advance."

 


96 percent
"would adopt a novel oral antiplatelet therapy, if it were demonstrated to significantly reduce cardiovascular events without incremental bleeding risk when used with standard of care regimens."