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Abstract
Previous clinical trials have established that clopidogrel is beneficial when used with coronary artery stenting. However, questions remain as to when the clopidogrel treatment should be started and how long treatment should be continued for. In a Clopidogrel Registry, it was shown that when subjects received a loading dose of clopidogrel 300 mg, 6 – 24 h before the intervention and clopidogrel maintenance for 1 month, the primary end point at 30 days (acute myocardial infarction, all cause death and revascularisation) was lower than in subjects who were just given clopidogrel maintenance. An observational study has shown that there are no additional benefits from continuing to use clopidogrel after 6 months from bare-metal stenting. In contrast, long-term treatment with clopidogrel is beneficial in subjects given drug-eluting stents, when long-term stent thrombosis can be a rare complication. Thus, in subjects given drug-eluting stents, there was an incidence of death and non-fatal myocardial infarction (6 – 24 months after stenting) of 8.4% without clopidogrel and 2.1% with clopidogrel. These results suggest that clopidogrel pretreatment should be used with stenting, and that with drug-eluting stents, clopidogrel treatment should be continued for at least 24 months.