Dual antiplatelet therapy in acute coronary syndromes and coronary artery interventions

Optimization of platelet inhibition in patients with acute coronary syndromes reduces the risk for ischemic events, but at the same time increases the risk for bleeding. There are several predictors of bleeding risk in patients with acute coronary syndromes. These include demographic variables such as advanced age, female gender, low body weight, concomitant diseases such as diabetes,renal insufficiency, noncardiac vascular disease such as cerebral vascular disease and a history of bleeding. It also includes the type of acute coronary syndromes such as patients presenting with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, high killip class and low blood pressure. The diabetic population contains a higher proportion of patients who do not respond to antiplatelet drugs as expected and who also have more activated platelets that deserve very vigorous inhibition. The importance of dual antiplatelet therapy in patients undergoing balloon angioplasty and stenting is much discussed. Yet there are some questions which are to be answered clearly such as the following:- 1) In the need to balance the benefit of clot prevention with bleeding risk, is it better to continue dual antiplatelet therapy for longer than one year? 2) If so, is this benefit specific to drug eluting stents or to a more general population of stent patients? 3) Is the benefit mediated by prevention of stent thrombosis or is there a global reduction in cardiovascular risk? This review is to understand all these aspects and help a physician use antiplatelet drugs appropriately in day to day clinical practice for better patient outcomes.