New Study Confirms the Dangers of Trasylol
Yet another study, this one from Canadian and Australian researchers, confirms that patients who receive the anti-bleeding drug Trasylol face a higher risk of death than those who are given cheaper anti-bleeding drugs.
Released on Dec. 2, the study reviewed findings from 49 randomized clinical trials. While Trasylol (aprotinin) was found to be more effective at controlling blood loss than lysine analogues, the higher fatality rate associated with the drug as well as its high cost outweighed the benefits.
Dr. David Henry, one of the co-authors of the study which will be published in the Jan. 20 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, concluded:
"Lysine analogues are almost as effective as aprotinin in controlling blood loss, are cheaper, and appear not to increase mortality."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Trasylol in 1993. On Jan. 20, 2006, an article suggesting a link between Trasylol and renal toxicity was published in the medical journal Transfusion. Later that same month, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article, co-authored by Dr. Dennis Mangano of the nonprofit Ischemia Research and Education Foundation, linking Trasylol to a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.
In the fall of 2006, an FDA advisory board met to decide whether the warning on Trasylol needed to be changed. At the meeting, Bayer failed to disclose the findings of a Trasylol study it had funded. In that study, Dr. Alexander Walker—a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health—reviewed the hospital records of 67,000 patients and found that those given Trasylol had a risk of death 64 percent higher than that of patients who received a comparison drug. It wasn’t until November 2007 that the drug was finally pulled from the market.
On Feb. 21, the New England Journal of Medicine released the study by Walker and a second study, conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers. Both showed that patients given Trasylol during heart surgery were more likely to die than patients given a comparable drug.
If you or a loved one suffered complications after taking Trasylol contact Carey & Danis. We can help. Carey & Danis is a national law firm that represents individuals injured by America's largest corporations.
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