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(Circulation. 2003;107:2884.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.
Clinical Investigation and Reports |
From the Population Health Research Institute (S.S.A., S.Y., J.P.) and Henderson Research Centre (J.S.G., J.H.), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, and the Divisions of Cardiology and Thrombosis, Department of Medicine (S.S.A., S.Y., J.P., J.S.G., J.H.), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
Correspondence to Sonia S. Anand, McMaster ClinicPopulation Health Section, 237 Barton St E, Hamilton, Ontario L8L 2X2, Canada. E-mail anands{at}mcmaster.ca
| Abstract |
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Methods and Results We examined the relationship between the APTT and recurrent cardiovascular events and bleeding among 5058 patients with an acute coronary syndrome without ST elevation who received intravenous heparin in the OASIS-2 trial. The increase in relative risk of recurrent CV events was 1.54 (95% CI 1.10 to 2.15; P=0.01) among patients with APTT values <60 seconds compared with patients with APTT values ≥60 seconds. When patients had persistently subtherapeutic APTT values for more than 48 hours, the increase in relative risk of a recurrent CV event was 1.84 (95% CI 1.25 to 2.70). Higher APTT values were associated with bleeding; for every 10-second increase in the APTT, the probability of major bleeding was increased by 7% (95% CI 3% to 11%; P=0.0004).
Conclusions In patients with acute coronary syndromes without ST elevation who are treated with intravenous heparin, our findings justify regular APTT monitoring to minimize recurrent ischemic events and bleeding.
Key Words: heparin thrombosis coronary disease
| Introduction |
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| Methods |
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Patient Population
The eligibility criteria for the OASIS-2 study have been fully described previously.7 Briefly, patients were eligible if they were admitted to the hospital within 12 hours of an episode of chest pain suspected to be due to unstable angina or MI without ST-segment elevation on their admission ECG. The diagnosis of unstable angina was based on symptoms of angina that were worsening or occurred with minimal activity, associated with either current ECG evidence of ischemia or previously documented objective evidence of coronary artery disease. Patients with a history of stroke in the previous year, renal impairment (ie, creatinine >175 µmol/L or >2.0 mg/dL), need for long-term oral anticoagulant therapy, PTCA within the last 6 months, planned thrombolysis, pregnancy, age <21 years or >85 years, body weight >100 kg, cardiogenic shock, angina not due to coronary disease, or other unrelated diseases that might limit life expectancy to <6 months were excluded.
Treatment
Eligible, consenting patients were randomly allocated to receive intravenous therapy with heparin (5000-U bolus followed by a starting infusion of 15 U · kg-1 · h-1) or hirudin (0.4 mg/kg bolus, followed by a starting infusion of 0.15 mg · kg-1 · h-1) in a double-blind fashion. The safety and efficacy results have been published previously.7 A subset of eligible patients (n=3712) were also randomly allocated to receive warfarin with a target international normalized ratio of 2.0 to 3.0 or standard therapy, in the presence of aspirin, and followed up for 5 months.8
APTT Monitoring and Infusion Adjustment
The target therapeutic range for both treatment groups was an APTT of 60 to 100 seconds. This therapeutic range was selected on the basis of the results of a study of unfractionated heparin that was performed at out institution that showed that this target range overlaps an anti-factor Xa range of 0.3 to 0.7 with most APTT reagent-coagulometer combinations.9 This simplified the study by accommodating the large number of APTT reagent-coagulometer combinations across the multiple centers. The dose-adjustment nomogram that was used in the OASIS pilot study (n=909) was also used in the present study (Table 1).10 An APTT was determined before and 6 hours after initiation of study drug; if the latter result was within the therapeutic range, the infusion rate was left unchanged, and the APTT was measured daily thereafter. In patients whose APTT results were not in the therapeutic range, the infusion was adjusted according to the study protocol, and the APTT value was measured 6 to 8 hours later (Table 1).
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Clinical Outcomes
All events in the primary and secondary efficacy composites and major safety events of the main trial were adjudicated by an independent panel of clinicians who were blinded to treatment allocation. Definitions of outcome events are given below.
Efficacy Outcomes: Recurrence
Cardiovascular (CV) death was defined as all deaths with a confirmed CV cause. New MI was confirmed if 2 of the following 3 criteria were met: (1) typical, prolonged ischemic chest pain lasting 20 minutes or more or chest pain requiring narcotic analgesia; (2) new creatine kinase (CK) enzyme increase to a level greater than twice the upper limit of the reference range (or >20% increase of the previous value if CK was already elevated), or a rise in CK-MB above the reference range; or (3) new diagnostic ECG changes.
Refractory angina was defined as a new episode of ischemic chest pain (with documented characteristic ECG changes during pain) lasting >5 minutes, occurring despite "optimal" medical treatment and requiring an additional intervention such as thrombolytic therapy, insertion of an intra-aortic balloon pump, or cardiac catheterization within 24 hours, including transfer to a tertiary care center.
Safety Outcomes: Bleeding
Bleeding episodes were classified as major (defined as clinically overt bleeding that required transfusion, surgical intervention, was life-threatening, or resulted in permanent disability) or minor (clinically overt but not meeting the criteria for major bleeding).
Statistical Methods
To assess the relationship between the APTT and recurrent ischemic events, the APTT was used as a time-dependent covariate and evaluated as a predictor of the time to a recurrent event in a proportional hazards regression model. Time from the beginning of the infusion to 72 hours was divided into 6-hour intervals, and the mean APTT within each interval was used for the analysis. As a time-dependent covariate, the APTT value just before the event was compared with the APTT value in the same time period for event-free patients. Where no measurement was taken, the value from the previous time interval was used. The same analysis was used to assess the relationship between APTT and time to bleeding events. These relationships are presented as smoothed curves. Smoothing is a nonparametric regression method, which we used to estimate the mean APTT response profile over time. A Gaussian Kernel function was used to weight the APTTs within a time window of 12 hours and arrive at a mean for that interval. This window was then moved across time to generate smoothed curves.11 For the discrete variable analysis, the APTT was categorized as <60 versus ≥60 for recurrent events and >100 versus ≤100 for bleeding. Relative risks (RRs) and their corresponding 95% CIs are presented from these regressions. All analyses were done with SAS version 8.0 and SPLUS version 5.0.
| Results |
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Overall, there was no significant relationship between the APTT and recurrent CV death, MI, and refractory angina when the APTT was used as a continuous variable (Figure 2). However, with a cutoff of 60 seconds, the increase in RR of recurrent CV death, MI, and refractory angina was 1.54 (95% CI 1.10 to 2.15; P=0.01) among patients with subtherapeutic APTT values compared with patients with APTT values >60 seconds (Figure 3). Furthermore, the RR of recurrence was lower among patients who achieved progressively higher APTT targets than among patients whose APTT values were <60 seconds (Figure 4). Patients who never achieved a therapeutic APTT and hence remained persistently subtherapeutic for 48 hours and 72 hours had significantly more recurrent ischemic events than did patients who achieved therapeutic APTT results. Their RR of CV death, MI, or refractory angina was 1.84 (95% CI 1.25 to 2.70) at 48 hours and 2.21 (95% CI 1.47 to 3.31) at 72 hours (Figure 5). Persistently subtherapeutic patients tended to be younger, male, cigarette smokers, and have diabetes (Table 3).
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Higher APTT values were associated with significantly more bleeding (Figure 6). For every 10-second increase in the APTT, the probability of major bleeding was increased by 7% (95% CI 3% to 11%; P=0.0004). When the APTT cutoff of >100 seconds was used, a significant relationship between supratherapeutic APTT values and major bleeding was observed (OR 1.48; 95% CI 1.01 to 2.17; P=0.04), although this became nonsignificant after adjustment for baseline factors including age, gender, weight, smoking, creatinine, and hemoglobin (OR 1.29; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.95; P=0.22).
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| Discussion |
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For bleeding outcomes, we also observed a significant association between APTT values and bleeding, because a 10-second increase in the APTT was associated with an increased chance of bleeding of 7% (P<0.004) even when the APTT did not exceed 100 seconds. When the APTT cutoff of >100 seconds was used, no significant relationship between supratherapeutic APTT values and major bleeding was observed after adjustment for baseline differences in age, gender, weight, smoking, creatinine, and hemoglobin (OR 1.29; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.95; P=0.22). Previous studies of patients with acute coronary syndromes treated with intravenous heparin have reported that bleeding is related to elevated APTT results,12,13 and one study also unexpectedly found that higher APTT results were associated with an increased likelihood of recurrent ischemic events and death.13 However, these patients received thrombolytic therapy. We observed that in patients with acute coronary syndromes who were treated with a weight-based starting infusion of intravenous heparin in the absence of thrombolytic therapy, increasing APTT values were associated with increased major bleeding episodes, even when the APTT did not exceed the upper limit of the predetermined therapeutic range. Therefore, when the recurrence and bleeding data are interpreted together, they support the role of regular monitoring of the APTT to maximize efficacy and minimize bleeding when patients with acute coronary syndromes are treated with intravenous heparin. Our data justify this conclusion in that once a patient becomes therapeutic, continued monitoring of the APTT is needed because a large proportion of patients subsequently fall out of the therapeutic range. Our findings suggest a lower limit of a therapeutic range of 60 seconds. The upper limit is less certain, but it should be below 100 seconds.
Study Limitations
These observational analyses were performed post hoc on data obtained from a randomized controlled trial in which one group received heparin. Therefore, caution must be exercised in interpretation of the data. However, recurrence, bleeding, and APTT parameters were defined before examination of the data, and the dose adjustments were made to maintain the APTT within a predefined range and therefore are likely to reflect a true relationship between APTT, recurrence, and bleeding.
Conclusions
Our results provide support for the use of a weight-based infusion of intravenous unfractionated heparin and justify regular APTT monitoring to maximize efficacy and minimize bleeding in patients with acute coronary syndromes without ST elevation.
| Acknowledgments |
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Received December 17, 2002; revision received March 25, 2003; accepted March 26, 2003.
| References |
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2. Cairns JA, Lewis D, Meade T, et al. Antithrombotic agents in coronary artery disease. Chest. 2001; 119: 228S252S.
3. Eikelboom JW, Anand SS, Malmberg K, et al. Unfractionated heparin and low-molecular-weight heparin in acute coronary syndrome without ST elevation: a meta-analysis. Lancet. 2000; 355: 19361942.[CrossRef][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
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9. Bates SM, Weitz JI, Johnston M, et al. Use of a fixed activated partial thromboplastin time ratio to establish a therapeutic range for unfractionated heparin. Arch Intern Med. 2001; 161: 385391.
10. Organization to Assess Strategies for Ischemic Syndromes (OASIS) Investigators. Comparison of the effects of two doses of recombinant hirudin compared with heparin in patients with acute myocardial ischemia without ST elevation: a pilot study. Circulation. 1997; 96: 769777.
11. Hastie TJ, Tibshirani RJ. Generalized Additive Models. New York, NY: Chapman & Hall; 1990.
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13. Granger CB, Hirsh J, Califf RM, et al. Activated partial thromboplastin time and outcome after thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction: results from the GUSTO-1 trial. Circulation. 1996; 93: 870878.
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