Post percutaneous coronary interventional adverse cardiovascular outcomes and bleeding events observed with prasugrel versus clopidogrel: direct comparison through a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Due to limitations associated with clopidogrel following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), other newer oral anti-platelet agents are being studied. We aimed to systematically carry out a direct comparison of outcomes observed with prasugrel versus clopidogrel following PCI. METHODS: Common online searched databases (The Cochrane library, EMBASE, MEDLINE and Google scholar) were used to retrieve relevant publications. Primary endpoints were the adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Secondary outcomes were the bleeding events. This analysis was carried out by RevMan 5.3, whereby odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were considered as the statistical parameters. RESULTS: Eight studies with a total number of 18,122 participants were included in this direct analysis. Prasugrel was associated with significantly lower adverse cardiovascular outcomes in comparison to clopidogrel following PCI. All-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, stroke, stent thrombosis and major adverse cardiac events were all significantly lower with prasugrel (OR: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.35–0.63; P = 0.0001), (OR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57–0.80; P = 0.00001), (OR: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.38–0.96; P = 0.03), (OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.30–0.72; P = 0.0006) and (OR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.53–0.70; P = 0.00001) respectively. When the bleeding outcomes were analyzed, Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) defined major and minor bleeding were not significantly different (OR: 0.91, 95% CI: 0.66–1.27; P = 0.59) and (OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 0.85–1.59; P = 0.35) respectively. However, the combined ‘all bleeding events’ was significantly higher with prasugrel (OR: 1.32, 95% CI: 1.03–1.70; P = 0.03), but when patients with STEMI and those undergoing elective PCI were separately analyzed, no significant difference in overall bleeding was observed. CONCLUSION: Adverse cardiovascular outcomes were significantly lower with the use of prasugrel in comparison to clopidogrel following PCI. In addition, TIMI defined major and minor bleeding were not significantly different showing prasugrel to be well-tolerated following PCI especially in patients with acute coronary syndrome.