Patients with acute coronary syndromes who have been taking the antiplatelet medication, ticagrelor, and who need coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) may be able to safely have the procedure earlier than typically recommended, a new randomized trial suggests.
Dr. Derek So
The RAPID CABG trial found that early surgery 2-3 days after ticagrelor cessation was noninferior in incurring severe or massive perioperative bleeding, compared with waiting 5-7 days. There was also no significant difference in TIMI CABG or Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC) type 4 or 5 bleeding.
Patients in the delayed group had a numerically higher number of ischemic events requiring earlier surgery and had a longer hospital stay.
The study was presented at the American Heart Association scientific sessions.
“RAPID CABG is the first and only randomized controlled trial evaluating the safety of early surgery in patients taking ticagrelor,” said lead investigator Derek So, MD.
Dr. So, a cardiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and a professor at the University of Ottawa, explained that ticagrelor is a first-line antiplatelet agent for patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS), but around 10% of patients presenting with ACS require CABG surgery.
A major concern among patients requiring bypass surgery is perioperative bleeding, and it has been shown that patients undergoing urgent bypass within 24 hours of the last dose of ticagrelor have increased mortality. Accordingly, guidelines suggest a waiting period for patients not requiring urgent bypass surgery, Dr. So noted.
Current North American guidelines suggest a waiting period of at least 5 days after stopping ticagrelor before bypass surgery. In contrast, the updated European and Japanese guidelines suggest a waiting period of 3 days.
Dr. So noted that all of the guidelines are based on cohort studies and pharmacodynamic studies, with no randomized evidence. Pharmacodynamic studies have shown that at 48 hours after the last dose of ticagrelor, the level of platelet inhibition drops to the same levels seen with long-term treatment with clopidogrel, a weaker antiplatelet drug, and after 120 hours (5 days) the effect has completely worn off.
Dr. So concluded that these new results from the RAPID CABG trial “may influence future iterations of North American guidelines with reduced waiting prior to bypass surgery” for patients receiving ticagrelor, and “they could also strengthen the level of evidence in European and Asian guidelines.”
Dr. Roxana Mehran
Designated discussant of the RAPID CABG trial, Roxana Mehran, MD, professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, said this was a “very important study,” being the only randomized trial to look at this issue to date.
Dr. Mehran noted that the results showed a similar number of major life-threatening bleeding events in the early and delayed groups and met the noninferiority endpoint, but she pointed out that the trial had a small sample size and a small number of events. “Therefore, larger trials are needed to verify these important and encouraging results.”
However, she concluded that these results should be considered in decisions about the timing of bypass surgery in patients receiving ticagrelor. “I will be changing my practice and sending patients earlier based on this data,” she said.