New Drug Shown to Reduce Risk of Heart Bypass Complications

An experimental new drug given to heart bypass patients before and during surgery can significantly reduce the risk of deadly complications, researchers say. The drug, Acadesine, was tested from 1990 to 1994, and a new analysis of those studies found a 26% reduction in deaths, heart attacks and strokes associated with bypass surgery. There was a 50% reduction in deaths in the first four days after the operation.

“This is the first drug . . . ever shown to reduce serious complications after heart surgery even though we’ve been doing these surgeries for 30 years,” said Dr. Dennis T. Mangano, director of the Multicenter Study of Perioperative Ischemia Research Group in San Francisco. Mangano reported the findings in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. He said the drug’s use would spare 16,000 patients worldwide from death or further injury each year.