Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine (WashU Medicine) in the US have found that adding anti-clotting stroke drugs failed to improve outcomes in a clinical trial.
The multi-arm optimisation of stroke thrombolysis (MOST) trial evaluated the efficacy of argatroban and eptifibatide alongside routine intravenous thrombolysis treatment.
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Argatroban is a blood thinner while eptifibatide hinders blood platelets from sticking together.
During the MOST trial, stroke patients were randomly assigned to receive either argatroban, eptifibatide, or a placebo.
The study incorporated checkpoints to assess whether the treatments met efficacy thresholds, with the first checkpoint occurring after 500 patients had been enrolled by 2023.
Physicians from 57 sites across the US participated in this research, seeking to improve care for stroke survivors who are at risk of developing new blockages during recovery.
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By GlobalDataThe trial was spearheaded by WashU Medicine department of emergency medicine head Opeolu Adeoye.
Despite the well-documented risk of new blockages in stroke patients, the findings of the trial indicated that neither of the drugs tested in the trial improved patient outcomes.
Furthermore, the likelihood of either drug being beneficial was determined to be less than 1%.
Moreover, both argatroban and eptifibatide were associated with higher rates of disability and mortality within the three-month observation period following treatment.
However, the safety monitors overseeing the project noted that the deaths did not appear to be related to the medications.
The absence of improvement with the medications, compared to the placebo, was sufficient grounds to discontinue the trial, the institute noted.
Adeoye said: “We’re a little disappointed in the results. But it’s meaningful to optimal patient care that we’ve answered the question definitively. Neither of the drugs helps prevent further clots.
“When we looked at the data, it was readily apparent that neither drug was going to come anywhere close to our threshold.”
