Deans' stroke musings: ARISTOTLE: Apixaban noninferior to warfarin in AF patients

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

ARISTOTLE: Apixaban noninferior to warfarin in AF patients

Anything has to be better than rat poison and all the blood tests needed.
http://www.theheart.org/article/1243587.do?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=20110622_Breaking_news_2011_06_22
Princeton, NJ and New York, NY - Topline results from the ARISTOTLE trial, comparing apixaban (Eliquis, Pfizer/Bristol-Myers Squibb [BMS]) to warfarin in subjects with atrial fibrillation [AF] and risk factors for stroke, suggest that the oral direct factor Xa inhibitor is noninferior to the older standard for the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism [1].

According to preliminary results of the study, released late Wednesday, apixaban also "met the key secondary endpoints of superiority on efficacy and on ISTH (International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis) major bleeding compared to warfarin."

Full results of the trial will be presented August 28 at the European Society of Cardiology 2011 meeting in Paris, France.

ARISTOTLE enrolled over 18 000 AF patients in over 1000 centers in roughly 40 countries, the press release notes. The trial randomized patients to either a twice-daily dose of apixaban 2.5 mg, or dose-adjusted warfarin.

If ultimately approved, apixaban would compete in this indication against dabigatran (Pradaxa, Boehringer Ingelheim), which is already on the US and other markets, as well as rivaroxaban (Xarelto, Bayer/Johnson & Johnson), still waiting for US approval. Rivaroxaban demonstrated noninferiority to warfarin in the ROCKET AF trial.

Earlier this year, apixaban proved itself superior to aspirin in the 5599-patient AVERROES study, conducted in patients with AF, at risk for stroke, who were not suitable candidates for warfarin therapy as reported by heartwire. Preliminary AVERROES results were also released early, after a predefined interim analysis by the independent data monitoring committee saw a clear and "clinically important reduction in stroke and systemic embolism."

The first approval for apixaban was last month, in Europe, where regulators granted it approval for use in the 27 countries of the EU for the prevention of venous-thromboembolic (VTE) events in adult patients who have undergone elective hip- or knee-replacement surgery.