Background
There are several clinical trials that proved the efficacy of clopidogrel treatment for patients with percutaneous coronary intervention. There are few large-scale research to explore the mortality associated with different duration use of clopidogrel in patients with diabetes and ACS undergoing PCI in the Chinese population.
Objectives
The objective of this analysis was to determine the efficacy of long-term clopidogrel therapy(≥ 12 months) versus short-term use(< 12 months) in Chinese patients with diabetes after PCI.
Methods
Using the Beijing Medicare database provided by Beijing Medical Security Bureau. The Beijing Medicare database contains medical data of about 16 million people, including about 990,000 patients with diabetes and a history of taking antidiabetic medicines. Patients were divided into two groups, one group of 9,116 patients receiving consecutive clopidogrel for one year or more, and another group of 3290 patients receiving consecutive clopidogrel less than one year. The primary of this analysis was the risk of all-cause death, myocardial infarction and revascularization.
Results
In patients with diabetes after PCI, long-term clopidogrel treatment was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause death(HR, 0.57[95%CI, 0.49–0.67], P < 0.0001), myocardial infarction(HR, 0.79[95%CI, 0.68–0.93], P = 0.0035) and an increased risk of angina(HR, 1.18[95%CI, 1.10–1.27], P < 0.0001]) and revascularization(HR, 1.07[95%CI, 1.01–1.13], P = 0.02]). There was no significant difference in the incidence of all-cause re-hospitalization(P = 0.7529), diabetes-related re-hospitalization and cerebrovascular re-hospitalization.
Conclusion
The present study concluded that long-term dual anti-platelet therapy including clopidogrel and aspirin could decrease the risks of all-cause death, myocardial infarction. But it could increase the risks of angina and revascularization. Further studies should interpret the cause of this question.