The TREAT trial “answers some questions, but critical others remain,” Clyde W. Yancy, MD, MSc, and Robert A. Harrington, MD, write in a brief accompanying editorial in JAMA Cardiology.
While switching patients from clopidogrel to ticagrelor in the first 24 hours after fibrinolysis was noninferior to keeping them on clopidogrel terms of major bleeding through 30 days, the editorialists “await further data addressing short-term and long-term outcomes in this lower-risk population of patients with STEMI.”
Perhaps most notably, the trial does not answer the “crucial” question on concomitant ticagrelor-lytic therapy for acute revascularization, they write. “Given the worldwide burden of acute coronary syndromes and the recognized exigencies which preclude the ubiquitous availability of PCI, we believe this question needs urgent attention. We await future trials.”
Dr. Yancy is at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago. Dr. Harrington is at the department of medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. Dr. Harrington disclosed ties to Astra, Amgen, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and several other pharmaceutical companies, and reported having served on the board of directors of the American Heart Association and Stanford Health Care. Dr. Yancy had no disclosures.
