Role of Plavix in Hemorrhagic and Ischemic Complications of Catheterization.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Patients who have stents placed in their coronary arteries require treatment with at least two medications to prevent platelets from sticking to the stainless steel stent and forming a blood clot that can result in a heart attack. The 2 anti-platelet medications used for most patients with stents are aspirin and clopidogrel (Plavix). These are usually prescribed for 1-12 months (the length of time depends on the number and types of stents implanted). Although the typical long-term dose of clopidogrel is 75 mg by mouth once daily, a larger dose (known as a loading dose) is usually given at the start of treatment to help the medication take effect more quickly. Prior to January 2006, most patients at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) who were undergoing PCI and who had not already been taking clopidogrel would receive a loading dose of 300-600 mg of clopidogrel in the cardiac catheterization procedure room immediately after the angioplasty and stenting portion of the procedure. However, several recent studies suggest that administering clopidogrel 600 mg at least two hours prior to an angioplasty procedure can reduce the rate of complications afterwards (especially reducing the chances of detectable damage to the heart muscle). The main purpose of this study is to see whether giving a loading dose of clopidogrel 600 mg to outpatients scheduled to undergo cardiac catheterization with coronary angiography can decrease the risk of procedure-related complications during the 14 days following the cardiac catheterization compared to a strategy of giving clopidogrel 600 mg after the procedure only to those who undergo angioplasty. We will focus our attention particularly on detecting damage to heart muscle following angioplasty (which might be expected to improve with a loading dose of clopidogrel before the procedure) and on bleeding and other groin complications (which might worsen with clopidogrel loading before the procedure). The drug clopidogrel has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in patients with a recent or ongoing heart attack, narrowings in major blood vessels outside the heart, or recent stroke with a loading dose of 300 mg followed by 75 mg once daily. It has been used in several large studies with a loading dose of 600 mg without a significant increase in major adverse effects. However, we do not yet know if it is useful or safe when given as a loading dose of 600 mg before cardiac catheterization for outpatients with stable symptoms and who are not thought to be in the midst of a heart attack.

About this trial record page

What this page shows

Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00421252, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.

What this page does not do

No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.

Where the data comes from

Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.

Last refresh

Last update posted Apr 13, 2017 · Synced Sep 10, 2026

Related: full search, browse by condition, browse by drug or therapy, browse by sponsor, browse by U.S. city.