A new drug called "Inclacumab" which is in the trial phase has shown promise during an international clinical trial in reducing the risk of damaging heart muscle during angioplasty, a surgery performed to remove obstructions in the arteries, according to Medical Xpress.
The clinical trial was led by Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Centre at the Montreal Heart Institute, affiliated with the University of Montreal said inclacumab can show great promise with its efficiency during surgeries. He said the new anti-inflammatory drug "could indeed become an integral part of the therapeutic arsenal of modern cardiology if we can reproduce these results in subsequent studies."
The new invention can hold a great future in eliminating the major risk factors involved in angioplasty procedures. The surgery is performed in order to treat atherosclerosis. A report by Medical Xpress states that nearly 35,000 coronary artery angioplasty surgeries are conducted in Canada and more than a million in the United States of America every year. The angioplasty surgeries are performed to widen or remove the obstructions in the arteries which are caused either due to fat accumulation or calcium and cellular waste formed in the arteries blocking the blood flow.
During the angioplasty, there is a major risk that the heart tissue can be damaged or seditious flow can lead to various complications. Dr. Tardif and his team conducted the clinical trial with a single dose of inclacumab with placebo. They found that with just a single dose of the new drug, 24 percent of troponin, a marker used to diagnose heart attack, was reduced.
"It is very exciting to discover that a single dose of inclacumab can provide benefits," said Dr. Tardif.
The results of the study were presented in San Francisco at the prestigious American cardiology conference on March 10.
