Study Overview
Objective. To assess the relative merits of ticagrelor compared to prasugrel in patients with acute coronary syndromes who will undergo invasive evaluation.
Design. Multicenter, open-label, prospective randomized controlled trial.
Setting and participants. A total of 4018 patients who presented with ACS with or without ST-segment elevation.
Intervention. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either ticagrelor or prasugrel.
Main outcome measures. The primary end point was the composite of death, myocardial infarction, or stroke at 1 year. The secondary end point was bleeding.
Main results. At 1 year, a primary end point event occurred in 184 of 2012 patients (9.3%) in the ticagrelor group and 137 of 2006 patients (6.9%) in the prasugrel group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.36; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09-1.70; P = 0.006). In the comparison between ticagrelor and prasugrel, the individual components of the primary end point were as follows: death, 4.5% versus 3.7%; myocardial infarction, 4.8% versus 3.0%; and stroke, 1.1% versus 1.0%, respectively. Definite or probable stent thrombosis occurred in 1.3% of patients assigned to ticagrelor and 1.0% in patients assigned to prasugrel. Major bleeding was observed in 5.4% of the patients in the ticagrelor group and 4.8% in the prasugrel group (HR, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.83-1.51, P = 0.46).
Conclusion. In patients who presented with ACS with or without ST-segment elevation, the incidence of death, myocardial infarction, or stroke was significantly lower among those who received prasugrel as compared to those who received ticagrelor, and incidence of major bleeding was not significantly different.